The design of this liquid compass was originally patented by Captain L.W.P. Chetwynd, RN, as a surveying compass in 1908, and would have carried an azimuth ring for this purpose (see ACO0071). The card is 3 inches (76mm) in diameter and marked to quarter points and in degrees (0-90 by 1 degree in each quadrant). It is held in a wooden box, on the underside of which is a label (from the Admiralty Compass Observatory Museum) stating that is was used by Colonel Cody in an aircraft flight on 27 October 1909.

This specific example is one of the first compasses to have been modified for use in an aircraft, and the first to have achieved successful damping of the aircraft's vibration. It was the result of trials in the autumn of 1909 by Commander Frank Osborne Creagh-Osborne, RN, then Assistant Superintendent of Compasses in the Compass Department of the Admiralty. Having seen that the card of the compass in an aircraft belonging to Samuel Cody (one of the pioneers of aircraft in Britain) began revolving as soon as the engine was started, Creagh-Osborne fitted a small compass in a bed of cotton waste in a box. This was tried out on the footboard of a one-cylinder car and found to be fairly well damped from vibration. It was then tried in the air with fairly satisfactory results, and so was the first non-gimballed damped compass.