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A History of Time

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A History of Time Clocks, Watches & Scientific Instruments A History of Time Toby Pinn of Clevedon Salerooms welcomes us aboard his time machine and takes us on a whistle-stop tour of the history of clocks and time keeping. Thomas Cruttenden, Yorke, late 17thC, marquetry and Professor Stephen Hawkings best selling book of price some people will pay for a hundred year old walnut month going longcase the above title begins at a point in time consid- rectangle of painted canvas, perhaps not? clock, inscribed ‘Tho. erably earlier than our starting point here, and English clocks of the seventeenth century sat on a Cruttenden, Yorke, Fecit’, whilst not wishing to confuse his ‘Big Bang’ with bracket fixed to a wall, hence their name bracket rising hood, spoon lock, my ‘Big Ben’ we do at least share an astronomical clocks. With a pendulum swinging back and forth and remnants of original latch, dial 10in case, 82.5in high. link in our nearest Star. one or two weights hanging beneath the clock it Sworders, Stansted The sundial was developed in the second millennium became apparent that anyone brushing past the Mountfitchet. Feb 06. HP: BC in Egypt and Mesopotamia and consisted origi- weights and pendulum could easily disturb the £16,000. ABP: £18,820. nally of a pole in the ground. The Greeks made smooth running of the clock. The solution was to further improvements, aided of course with an ample enclose the weights and pendulum in a long case – supply of sunshine, and by the fourth century BC had hence the name long case clock. A little tip, the name portable sundials. So accurate is a correctly set up Grandfather clock is a Victorian term relating to a sundial that until the end of the nineteenth century popular music hall song and should be avoided, and the invention of the electric clock, they were especially if you are trying to sound as if you know Two globes by Thomas being used to set the time on mechanical clocks! what you are talking about! In the eighteenth century, Malby & Son, London, one a We now need to fly around the globe to those clever as the nation prospered more and more, people could terrestrial globe dated 1850, Chinese and to one Su Song who not only built, but afford to have clocks in their homes, though they brass meridian, ebonised also described and illustrated what is considered the were still a costly purchase. If you think that govern- stand, ring with zodiac calendar scale, 16.5in wide, first mechanical timepiece in 1090AD; a clock that ments in recent decades have rarely missed an oppor- and a matching celestial was powered by water. Back to Europe and it is not tunity to impose taxes on the people spare a thought globe dated 1847. Andrew until the beginning of the Renaissance that things for clock owners in 1797. Pitt’s government passed an Hartley, Ilkley. Feb 04. HP: start to get mechanical with cogs and hands in what Act of Parliament requiring the owners of clocks to £7,000. ABP: £8,233. we would today recognise as a clock. It is thought that pay an annual levy of five shillings per clock! This one of the earliest mechanical clocks in Europe was was not a major vote winner and as a result the Act set up in a church in Milan in 1335. It is no coinci- was repealed the following year. dence that churches would often own the only clock The Victorians produced ever more fanciful creations in the vicinity. Not only did they have the necessary and in the second half of the nineteenth century we wealth to purchase one, but the congregation would often think of France and their delightful carriage Victorian 18ct gold keyless no longer have a valid excuse for missing church clocks. You can buy a brand new carriage clock from minute repeating hunter when you could see the clock face high up on the any high street jeweller but I am afraid to say, that chronograph, dial and tower or hear its striking from several miles away! with a few exceptions, they are but poor imitations of movement signed Chas. These early clocks relied on suspended weights to their predecessors. Frodsham, By Appointment drive them but this meant that they were not at all Into the twentieth century and one of the biggest to the Queen, 84 Strand, London, No. 08381, AD portable as any movement would cause the clock to developments was the move from the pocket watch to Fmsz, partly Swiss, stop. In the latter half of the fifteenth century the wristwatch. As the mechanics became ever hallmarked for London 1894. someone came up with the idea of a coiled spring as smaller, so someone had the idea that by attaching a Gorringes, Lewes. Mar 04. the driving power. With the wristwatch still some 400 strap to the watch you could glance at it on your wrist HP: £4,200. ABP: £4,940. years off, it was for the first time possible to carry a rather than having to take it from your pocket. portable timepiece from a belt, assuming you were The trouble with time is that you have either too wealthy enough to afford one. The problem at this much of it, (I hear such people exist) or not enough of time however was much the same as for those folk in it. Here I am out of time, and I did not even mention the early 1980s with their cumbersome mobile Rolex, Switzerland, cuckoo clocks or quartz phones. It was all very well owning one, but until lots movements! Like me you probably have a timepiece of other people had one they were of limited use, of some sort in virtually every room of your house, Rolex gentleman’s stainless except of course as a status symbol! one on your wrist and another on your mobile phone. steel, gold and diamond ‘Oyster Perpetual Cosmo- A big breakthrough occurred in 1656 when the Dutch Half our life is spent trying to find something to do graph Daytona’, ref. 16523, scientist Christian Huygens invented the pendulum as with the time we have rushed through life trying to 8 diamond-set markers, a means of regulating clocks. The use of the long save. With that in mind I will leave you with these centre seconds, subsidiary pendulum became the speciality of the English, and wise words. ‘A man with a watch knows what time it dials for constant seconds, world-renowned makers such as Johannes is. A man with two watches is never sure’. minutes, hours, steel case, Fromanteel, Thomas Tompion and Joseph Knibb calibrated gold bezel and on Toby Pinn of Clevedon Salerooms is a Chartered Arts ensured English clocking making was, in the late a steel and gold ‘Oyster’ & Antiques Surveyor and Member of the Royal Institute bracelet, wooden case, spare seventeenth and early eighteenth century unsur- of Chartered Surveyors, a member of the Regional link and certificate of passed. In 2003 a long case clock by Tompion sold at Furniture Society and The Antique Metalware Society. guarantee dated 1995. auction in London for just under £1,000,000. A lot of Bearne’s, Exeter. Jun 05. Toby specialises in Furniture and 20th Century Design. HP: £4,000. ABP: £4,705. money you might think but when you consider the www.clevedon-salerooms.com. Tel: 01934 830111. ANTIQUES INFO - July/August 06 Tudor, gentleman’s Prince Date chronograph steel ‘Geographica’ 10in Terres- Early 18thC Dutch longcase trial globe on stand, c1900, clock movement, arched Lacquered brass quadrant by bracelet watch, automatic Two day marine chronometer, movement, silver dial, Oyster sphere with coloured detail, brass dial, moonphase and Yeates, Dublin, lined leather depicting ‘Railways, Steamer by Victor Kullberg, engraved signs of the zodiac, inscribed case. Gorringes, Lewes. Apr bracelet. Model No. 79280, ‘Victor Kullberg maker to the Serial No. H119347. Fellows route distances in sea miles, ‘Pieter Swaan, Amsterdam’, 02. HP: £1,250. ABP: £1,470. Heights in English feet, Admiralty the Indian and seconds dial, ringed winding & Sons, Birmingham. Oct 03. Italian Governments 105 HP: £650. ABP: £764. British Possessions Red’, holes, triangular calendar brass meridian on a turned Liverpool Road, London N’, aperture showing the days of brass strung and inlaid wood and ebonised stand, the week, overall height 48cm high. Sworders, coromandel case, plaque 2.22m. Sworders, Stansted engraved and numbered Stansted Mountfitchet. Feb Mountfitchet. Nov 05. HP: 05. HP: £260. ABP: £305. 3136. Sworders, Stansted £1,900. ABP: £2,234. Mountfitchet. Apr 01. HP: £3,800. ABP: £4,469. Bronze sundial, John Da..., Windsor, engraved Roman numerals, compass points 18thC brass perpetual etc, pierced gnomon, signed, calendar, 3 dials each with 30.5cm dia. Gorringes, silvered back plate, showing Bexhill. Dec 05. HP: £460. Pocket sundial, fitted turned month, day and date, 5.25 x ABP: £541. and ebonised case, 6cm, and 4.75in, inscribed, dated another in a leather case, 1713. Canterbury Auction and another inscribed Galleries, Kent. Feb 04. HP: O’Leary, Dublin in a carved Two-day marine chronometer, £760. ABP: £893. ebony case inscribed An 18ct gold open-faced by Frodsham & Keen, ‘Killarney’. (3) Sworders, pocket chronometer, James Liverpool. No. 3390. Stansted Mountfitchet. Nov McCabe. Gorringes, Bexhill D M Nesbit & Company, 04. HP: £220. ABP: £258. On Sea. Dec 04. HP: £3,400. Southsea. Jul 03. HP: ABP: £3,999. £1,500. ABP: £1,764. 19thC brass compass sundial by Stanley, silvered compass dial, engraved decoration, marked Stanley, Gt. Tiernstile, Swiss keyless calendar/world Holborn, London, tri-form time bulls-eye desk timepiece, adjustable screw feet, spirit Indian circular brass enamelled Roman dial with levels, base plate, mahogany compass sundial,with glazed subsidiary moonphase/ transit case, 17.5cm.
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