Shortland Brothers SB Wall Barometer & Thermometer

Opening

The barometer was the oracle of the domestic wall. Before weather forecasts were broadcast on radio, before satellite imagery, before the internet, the glass-fronted dial hanging in the hallway was the household's only instrument for anticipating what the sky would do. Farmers set their harvest days by it. Sailors checked it before leaving harbour. Gardeners, hikers, and housewives tapped the glass and watched which way the hand moved. This one was considered important enough to be given as a formal gift, inscribed with names and a date, by a football club that had only existed for eighteen months.

The Object

This is a wall-mounted combination weather station by Shortland Brothers, England, consisting of a Fahrenheit spirit thermometer and an aneroid forecasting barometer mounted on a single dark oak panel. The case is in the Art Deco stepped and chamfered style characteristic of British domestic instrument-making in the 1930s and 1940s: the oak panel has a raised central spine with chamfered edges that widen into a square lower section housing the barometer. The barometer bezel is polished chrome. The overall form is vertical, with the thermometer above and the barometer below, separated by a small recessed shelf on which the brass dedication plaque is fixed.

The thermometer is mounted on a white enamel octagonal face plate, fixed to the oak panel with two brass screws. The scale is Fahrenheit only, running from 20°F to 120°F, with labelled reference points at Freezing (32°F), Temperate (approximately 60°F), Summer Heat (approximately 80°F), and Blood Heat (approximately 98.6°F). These annotations are a survival of nineteenth-century British thermometer convention, carried forward into mid-century production. The bulb is a spirit (alcohol) type rather than mercury. The lower plate is inscribed MADE IN ENGLAND.

The barometer dial is square format under a polished chrome bezel with rounded corners, glazed with flat glass. The dial face is cream-coloured with two-tone printing: weather forecast text in brown gothic lettering around the outer ring, numeric pressure scale in the inner ring, and instruction text along the lower edge. The SB winged badge of Shortland Brothers appears at the centre of the dial. The lower edge of the dial reads MADE IN ENGLAND and BRITISH PAT. APPLIED FOR, confirming that the patent was pending at the time of manufacture, with patents granted in 1947.

The Maker

Shortland Brothers were British manufacturers of meteorological and domestic weather instruments, operating under the SB brand with its distinctive winged logo. The company later traded as Shortland Smiths before eventually becoming Shortland Bowen Instruments Limited, incorporated in 1969 and based in Hove, East Sussex. Their instruments are classified under the manufacture of watches and clocks (SIC 26520) and specialised in barometers and hygrometers for the domestic and professional markets.

The SB winged barometers were made in England and sold widely from the late 1940s through the 1960s. The Art Deco oak wall format with the square chrome-bezelled barometer and the upper thermometer panel was one of Shortland Brothers' standard domestic configurations, produced in both oak and other hardwood cases. The "British Pat. Applied For" inscription on this example is a precise dating indicator: patent applications dated to 1947 confirm that production of this specific dial type began in 1947, making this among the earliest examples of the model.

Shortland Brothers should not be confused with the more famous Short & Mason of Walthamstow, London, founded in 1864, who made the Stormoguide and Sestrel-brand instruments and whose initials were S&M. The SB winged badge is sometimes misread as Short & Mason, but the two firms are entirely distinct.

The Barometer Mechanism

The barometer uses an aneroid mechanism: a sealed, evacuated metal capsule that expands and contracts with changes in atmospheric pressure. This expansion is transmitted through a lever and gear train to the pointer. The term aneroid comes from the Greek meaning "without liquid", distinguishing it from the earlier mercury barometer in which pressure was measured by the height of a column of mercury. The aneroid capsule was invented by French scientist Lucien Vidi in 1844, and the aneroid barometer rapidly displaced the mercury type for domestic and portable use due to its compactness, robustness, and freedom from the hazards of liquid mercury.

The atmospheric pressure at sea level averages approximately 29.92 inches of mercury (1013.25 millibars). The scale on this instrument runs from 28 to 31 inches, covering the full practical range of pressure variation encountered in the British Isles. A pressure of 28 inches or below represents a deep depression, associated with severe storm conditions; 31 inches represents a strong anticyclone, associated with settled dry weather. The typical day-to-day variation in a British location is far smaller, between about 29 and 30.5 inches.

The Dual-Hand Forecasting Dial

The most distinctive feature of this barometer is its dual-hand forecasting system, which is the subject of the British patent application noted on the dial. The instrument has two pointer hands: a black hand for rising pressure and a silver/grey hand for falling pressure. The instruction text along the lower edge of the dial reads:

RISING, HAND MOVES TO RIGHT, READ BLACK FORECAST

FALLING, HAND MOVES TO LEFT, READ RED FORECAST

The outer ring of the dial carries two interlocking sets of weather forecasts, printed in contrasting colours. Moving clockwise from the lower left (28 inches) to the upper centre and around to the lower right (28 inches again), the rising-pressure (black) forecasts read: Heavy Rain Stormy / Unsettled Light Wind Colder / Showers Clearing Cool / Continuous Rain / Clearing Windy Cool / Fine Colder in Winter / Very Dry. The falling-pressure forecasts, printed in the opposing colour, occupy the same spatial positions but with different text, so that the same pressure reading delivers a different forecast depending on whether the pressure is rising or falling toward it.

This system encodes a fundamental truth of meteorological observation: the direction of pressure change is as important as the absolute pressure value. A barometer reading 29.5 inches and rising indicates improving weather; the same reading and falling indicates deteriorating weather. Short & Mason had pioneered this principle with their Stormoguide from 1921 onward. The Shortland Brothers dual-hand system is a later domestic application of the same insight, patented independently.

The Dedication Plaque

Between the thermometer and barometer, fixed to the recessed shelf of the oak panel, is a small brass rectangular plaque reading:

FROM / SALTASH UNITED F.C. / TO / A.R. WELLINGTON / 22 NOV: 1947.

Saltash United Football Club is a semi-professional football club based in Saltash, Cornwall, located on the west bank of the River Tamar directly opposite Plymouth in Devon. The present club was formed in 1946, immediately after the end of the Second World War, beginning life in the Plymouth and District League and winning their opening competitive fixture against Landulph 7-1. An earlier Saltash United had existed in the 1920s but folded in 1927. The reformed club was therefore only approximately eighteen months old when this plaque was inscribed on 22 November 1947.

The town of Saltash has deep historical significance as one of the oldest chartered boroughs in England, and its name derives from "Essa", the Latin form used in its medieval charter, meaning "Ash". The club crest uses the heraldic seal of the town: a shield between two ostrich feathers ensigned by a crown, elements drawn from the arms of the Duchy of Cornwall. Saltash lies within the Duchy of Cornwall estate and has been associated with the Duchy since the medieval period.

A.R. Wellington was most likely a founding committee member, treasurer, club secretary, or major patron of the reformed club. The date of 22 November 1947 falls in the middle of the 1947-48 football season, suggesting this was either an end-of-first-season retrospective presentation or a mid-season recognition of service. No further public record of A.R. Wellington has been located. The choice of a precision weather instrument as a presentation gift reflects a convention common in British sporting and civic life in the mid-twentieth century, when barometers, clocks, and inkstands were standard gifts for officials and departing officers.

Significance

This piece operates on two levels simultaneously. As a meteorological instrument it is a well-made mid-century British domestic barometer of a type that was sold widely across the country in the late 1940s and 1950s, competently engineered, clearly legible, and still functional. As a historical document it is considerably rarer: a dated, named object that connects a specific place, a specific club, and a specific moment in time. Saltash United F.C. had existed for eighteen months. Britain was still in post-war austerity. Rationing would not end until 1954. And someone chose to commission a brass plaque, fix it to a precision instrument, and give it to a man named A.R. Wellington as a formal act of recognition. That detail survives intact.