~~The Student Lamp was a lamp popular in the late 1800s in both single and double burner models. Its claim to fame was that it cast little to no "undershadow."
~~As you will note, it was mounted on a vertical post and the lamp itself was on a swing arm. The lamp pictured is a "Syphon Study Lamp" as shown in the 1881 Edward Miller & Co. Illustrated Catalog of bronzed, decorated, and real bronze Lamps & Cigar Lighters.
~~The oil font is to the left of the vertical post and the oil is siphoned to the lamp where it is burned.
~~The Manhattan Student Lamp, manufactured by the Manhattan Brass Co., was one of the most popular and least expensive lamps in its day. It is easily found in various antique stores.
~~Richard Miller and John Solverson point out in their book "Student Lamps of the Victorian ERA" these lamps were known in Europe as "Reading Lamps" and in England as the "Queen's Reading Lamp."
~~The lamps were generally 7" and 10" and came in both single and double lamps. One of my Miller Student lamps has duplex burners on it. It was felt in those days that if you had two wicks in the burner you increased the amount of light and to some degree that apparently was true.
~~Another major manufacturer of Student Lamps in this period was Wilde & Wessel of Germany. This lamp is very similar to the Harvard Lamp made by Plume & Atwood. The body of the lamp is a very intricate brass casting and the burner was a special Kosmos burner. The burner, rather than threading into to the font, had a tube attached to it and the small protuberance on the bottom was actually a nut as well as an air intake.
~~A regular Kosmos burner does not fit this lamp. There were people that took this lamp and fitted it with a brass insert and then a Plume & Atwood burner. I am not sure what the reason was for doing this other than possibly it enabled them to use American Made wicks.