Optician more important and dignified. Far-sighted or aging colonial Americans imported spectacles from Europe. Spectacles were primarily for the affluent and literate colonists, who required a valuable and precious appliance. Benjamin Franklin in the 1780s developed the bifocal. Bifocal lenses advanced little in the first half of the 19th century. The terms bifocal and trifocal were introduced in London by John Isaac Hawkins, whose trifocals were patented in 1827. In 1884 B. M. Hanna was granted patents on two forms of bifocals which become commercially standardized as the "cemented" and "perfection" bifocals. Both had the serious faults of ugly appearance, fragility,
Richard Cook (artist 1784–1857) Richard Cook (artist 1784–1857) Richard Cook (1784 – 11 March 1857) was an English artist. Cook was born in London in 1784, and entered the schools of the Royal Academy in 1800. He was a constant contributor to the exhibitions from 1808 to 1822, during which time he painted several landscapes, scenes from "The Lady of the Lake", and in 1817, having been elected an Associate in the preceding year, a more ambitious work, entitled "Ceres, Disconsolate for the Loss of Proserpine". It is now in the collection of the Royal Academy. A contemporary critic described it as "an elegant