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Sextant

Catalogue number:
1989.0548.01

Inscriptions:
"H. HUGHES & SON L^TD. LONDON" and "44164" and "MADE IN ENGLAND"

Dimensions:
radius 6 inches

Discussion:
This sextant has a frame of blackened brass. The silvered scale is graduated every degree from -5^o to +130^o and read by ivory micrometer with electric light to 10 seconds of arc. The batteries for the light are in the handle of the instrument. Hughes was making micrometer sextants by the early 1930s.

Steven Memoli bought this sextant in Cardiff, Wales, in 1944. Memoli spent the war years transporting troops from the U.S. to Europe and North Africa; he also participated in the Normandy invasion. Several years after the end of the war, having been prodded by the U.S. Circuit Court, the Department of Defense granted veteran’s status to Memoli and other merchant seamen of his ilk.

Ref: Henry Hughes & Son, Ltd., Sextants and General Navigational Instruments (London, 1938).

Further Information:

Hughes
Sextant