Ingot of antimony. Antimony is a metallic element that occurs naturally in soils and water. It is used in various alloys and in certain industrial and manufacturing processes.

This ingot comes from a 15-drawer cabinet found in the Herschel family home in the 1950s. The contents of this and a similar cabinet seem to suggest that they were used by successive generations of the family to store specimens, material and apparatus for carrying out experiments.

This sample of antimony was presumably used by John F.W. Herschel and/ or his children (it may even have been used by John F.W. with his children) as the raw materials for experiments.