It’s always important to make sure that you have everything you require before you leave the house. Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch.

Lots of people wear glasses, even if they don’t want to admit to it. Regular glasses, reading glasses, bifocals, sunglasses, pince-nez, monocles, quizzing-glasses…where do all these different types of glasses come from? Put on your favourite pair of specs and let’s see if we can’t focus in on this fuzzy little problem.

Focusing on Lenses

Lenses used for correcting vision or for magnifying small objects, have been used since ancient times. Originally they were polished stones or crystals. When early glass-making was perfected, a spherical glass container filled with water was discovered to have magnifying properties. In the Medieval era, people with poor eyesight might use a “reading-stone” to better examine the words on the page in front of them. Reading-stones were spheres of glass sliced in half and polished, so that they could be slid along a page, magnifying the text underneath.

By the late 1200s, the first two-lens eyeglasses of a kind which we might recognise today, were developed, most likely in Italy in the 1280s. By 1301, Venice, the famous center of glass-blowing and glass-making in Europe, had established a guild to regulate the manufacture and sale of spectacles. Once the blowing and grinding of lenses had been perfected, and had been fully taken-over by glass-makers, mankind could then start focusing on mounting these lenses into frames.

Early Spectacles

Early spectacles were very crude. Two lenses in a pair of frames, joined together.

And that was it.

The frames holding the lenses, if they were identical, might be hinged in the middle, to fold up, or they might have a ribbon or chain about them to catch them if they fell, but from the Middle Ages until the 1600s, most spectacles were simple hand-held things. Like if you took a regular pair of glasses and snapped the arms off it. They might have a small handle on the side with which to hold them, or else you just held them by the frames. Useful, but hardly practical. Because spectacles could be expensive, if you managed to buy a pair, you probably wanted them to look nice. Frames of gold, wood, ivory and bone, or actual tortoise-shell were popular. Those ugly ‘tortoise-shell’ glasses you used to have as a kid? Cheap plastic junk. Real tortoise-shell used to be used back in the old days.

As you can imagine, having to hold your glasses to your face with your hand was extremely impractical. The distance between your spectacles and your eyes changed constantly, pulling things in, and out of focus. It made the hand and arm tired, and it used up one hand, which might otherwise be doing something useful.

The Pince-Nez

The first solution to this was the Pince Nez (French, literally, for ‘Pinch-Nose’, pronounced ‘pas-nay‘).

Pince-Nez spectacles came with a spring-loaded clip between the lenses, and underneath the bridge that held the two frames together. The clip quite literally pinched your nose and held the glasses in front of your eyes, allowing both hands to be free for use. This was an advancement, but constantly having the clamp biting down on the top of your nose was uncomfortable in long stretches. Most people kept their pince-nez on a chain and only put them on when it was really necessary to do so, to prevent the constant pressure and pinching from becoming irritable.

The Lorgnette

Although pince-nez allowed people to use their hands, the constant pinching was irritating at best and distracting and painful at the worst of times. One alternative was the lorgnette.

Like the ‘Pince Nez’, the ‘Lorgnette’ did not come with folding arms. It came with a small handle that stuck out the side of the frame, which you gripped in your fingers and held in front of your eyes. The handle might have a cord or ribbon run through it, to catch it if you dropped it. Lorgnettes were common during the 17-1800s. For fairly obvious reasons, they, like all previous designs, were used as sparingly as possible. Some lorgnettes came with a folding bridge, that allowed the entire thing to be folded up to be more compact. Others came with spring-loaded handle-cases. The spectacles were folded into the case. When they were needed, they popped out on a spring, and the case then doubled as the grip and handle.

The Quizzing-Glass

How can you give someone a quizzical expression without a quizzing-glass??

Popular during the Georgian and Victorian eras, the quizzing-glass was a handheld pocket magnifying-glass. It was designed to be small, portable, and to be carried around by the owner so that he or she could whip it out at a moment’s notice and take a closer look at something.

Although they were supposed to be visual aids, quizzing-glasses were also very fashionable, and it was common for men and women to keep one about their persons. Along with its better-known cousin, the monocle, peering at someone with upper-class disgust through the lens of your quizzing-glass has become a stereotype of aristocracy, nobility, old money families and the Nouveau Riche the world over! The quizzing-glass was born in the 1700s and lasted well into the Edwardian era. You can still buy them today, if you know where to look.

The Monocle

I say! When it comes to showing upper-class disdain, genuine curiosity, attempting to keep up appearances or finishing off that last bit of kit for your steampunk party-outfit, the monocle is considered the king of eyewear!

The monocle is the younger brother of the quizzing-glass. It differs in two ways:

1. It’s held in the eye-socket, and not away from the eye. 
2. It’s custom-cut and ground to fit its owner’s eye-socket. 

From the Georgian era of the 1700s until the mid-20th century, monocles were worn by almost everyone, from upper-class dandies, fops and toffs, to jewellers, gentlemen, ladies, aristocrats, the well-to-do, and German, Prussian and Austrian military officers peering down at maps, while they decided on their next move on the Western or Eastern Fronts during the Franco-Prussian War, WWI and WWII.

The monocle was designed to be worn by people with poor eyesight in only one eye. It seemed silly and a waste of money to buy lenses for BOTH eyes when only one had a vision-issue. So the monocle was invented.

Properly cut and measured for its owner’s eye-socket, the monocle was designed to be held in-place by the cheekbone and the eye-socket and eyebrow. Fitted properly, it wouldn’t (or was less-likely) to drop out of one’s face and shatter on the ground, or land in one’s drink, if you saw something that shocked or surprised you.

Monocles have died out a bit in recent years, mostly due to advances in optometry, but you can still buy them, and wear them. And sometimes they’re still prescribed, due to customer not requiring a full set of glasses for his or her particular eye-condition.

Monocles come in one of three different styles. First is just a plain glass disc with ridges around the edge for grip. This is the simplest and cheapest form. Next is the metal-framed monocle, typically framed in gold or silver.

The last form of monocle is one with a gallery-frame, shown above. Galleried monocles were designed for people whose natural bone-structure or facial-structure did not work well with regular monocles. The lens itself was not held in the eye-socket. Rather, the extended gallery was held in the socket, and the lens was held to the gallery. This allowed a person to wear a monocle even if his personal bone-structure wouldn’t allow him to do so naturally.

Modern Spectacles

Modern spectacles or eyeglasses as we recognise them today, with identical frames, a bridge, nose-pads, and hinged, folding arms on the sides to rest on one’s ears, were invented in the 1700s. Throughout the 19th century, they were in constant competition with the other forms of eyewear previously mentioned in this posting.

Having to wear spectacles all the time was seen as a form of weakness. Physical weakness, because it suggested to others that the wearer did not have sufficient vision to handle regular tasks. But as attitudes changed in the 1800s, the weak stigma of spectacles began to be replaced by one of studious intelligence. And wearing permanent spectacles instead of carrying around occasional eyepieces such as lorgnettes, became more acceptable and stylish as the 1800s progressed.

Bifocals

Famous American inventor, printer, founding-father and general brainiac, Benjamin Franklin is credited with inventing a pair of spectacles with lenses of two different powers. Franklin suffered from both near-and-farsightedness. It was extremely frustrating for him to constantly have to change his spectacles while he worked. One pair for regular use, one pair for close-up use. Imagine having to repair his printing-press with one pair of glasses, then stopping, removing them, and putting on his other pair, to read the type in the print-bed.

Franklin solved these frustrations by cutting the lenses in half. His resulting creation meant that he could simply shift his eyesight up or down, to look through either the top, or bottom of his glasses, depending on what he wanted to read. The term ‘Bifocals’, or spectacles with two different types of focusing lenses, was coined in 1824.

Sunglasses

The first sunglasses of a kind were invented by the Chinese in the 12th century, using thin slices of smoky quartz crystal, polished until translucent. Sunglasses again appeared in Italy in the 1700s, made of tinted glass, they were worn by those who wanted to protect their eyes from the strong Mediterranean sun, or from the reflections of the sunlight coming off the sea, and were first made in Venice, the glass-blowing capital of Europe.

However, sunglasses as we would know them today – tinted glass or plastic lenses in a dark plastic, metal, or brass frame, are a relatively recent invention. They became popular in the 1910s and 20s, and were worn by film-stars to protect their eyes from the glare of early studio-lights, and the blinding flash of early flashbulb-cameras.

Sunglasses became more and more popular during the 1930s and 40s. One group of people who came to rely on sunglasses were early airplane pilots. Due to the un-tinted windows and windshields of early airplanes (or in some cases, due to the complete absence of windshields altogether), they required sunglasses to block the glare from the sun.

Among the most famous types sunglasses out there are ‘Aviators’, developed in 1936, for fighter-pilots in the United States Army Air Force (USAAF), to protect them from the glare of the sun while flying missions. Before, during and after WWII, ‘Aviator’-style sunglasses became popular with American youth, something which has not changed in nearly 80 years. Their sleek, simple, minimal design has ensured their popularity well into the 21st century.

 Want a Closer Look?

The History of Eyeglasses

“What Man Devised that he might See”

Quizzing Glasses

The College of Optometrists – Quizzing Glasses

The College of Optometrists – History of Various Glasses-Styles