Jesse Ramsden FRS (1735 – 1800) was one of the leading manufacturers of scientific instruments in the latter part of the eighteenth century, apprenticed unusually late to the industry at the age of 21, to Mark Burton, mathematical instrument maker in Denmark Street, in the Strand. Ramsden had previously been apprenticed to a cloth worker, although abandoned this trade when he apprenticed himself to Burton in 1756.

Swiftly gaining a reputation, Ramsden began trading under his own name by 1763. It was at this time that he developed a life long association with the Dollond family. Ramsden was undoubtedly influenced by and learnt from John Dollond, who had famously invented and patented 'the achromatic lens'. When Ramsden married Dollond's daughter, Sarah, he subsequently acquired a profitable share in this patent. Opening a shop in Haymarket, near Little Suffolk Street, Ramsden traded under the sign of the Golden Spectacles