British instrument maker Edward Scarlett, a competitor of Edmund Culpeper, made this instrument in the 1730s.

The microscope so closely resembles the basic Culpeper-style microscope that some historians report a partnership between Scarlett and Culpeper, although we are told that most of the evidence from the time period suggests this is not true.

Scarlett's microscope was featured in 1738 for the first time in Smith's Opticks, a periodical concerned with various aspects of optics, astronomy, and microscopy. He also introduced a number of improvements in the overall Culpeper design including making the support tripod continuous from the body to the base. This made access to the stage easier and provided for greater variability in specimen size and shape. Scarlett's design, with some deviation in the leg structure and assembly, became the basic model used by a majority of eighteenth-century instrument makers.

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