Clocks · Longcase clock
8-day striking longcase clock retailed by Harrods
- Maker / attribution
- Harrods (retailer)
- Date
- c. 1900
- Historical period
- Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Longcase clock
- Dimensions
- Height 183 cm
- Stock no.
- Product 3280
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, The Antique Clock Company (product 3280)
- Catalogue title (original)
- SMALL 8-DAY STRIKING LONGCASE CLOCK RETAILED BY HARRODS (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by The Antique Clock Company (dealer), Dorset (stock number Product 3280), this is a longcase clock by Harrods, dated c. 1900. The Atlas places it in the Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking period (1900 – 1945) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: Height 183 cm. The record is illustrated with 3 photographs.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Dealer description — The Antique Clock Company
Dial: The brass arched dial has a silvered chapter ring with Roman hour numerals and a minute ring with Arabic five-minute numerals. Brass cherub head spandrels to the corners. Seconds subsidiary dial above the matted centre. Strike/silent lever in the break arch with brass spandrels on either side. Original blued steel hands. Case: This superb solid oak case has a long trunk door and a shaped top. The base has an inset panel and plain foot. The top of the hood follows the line of the break arch dial, with detached columns, capitals, and bases. Movement: The robust 8-day duration rack strike movement strikes the hours on the hour to a spiral gong, weight driven with Anchor escapement. Made to the highest quality, as would be expected of Londons most famous retailer. Height: 6ft / 72” / 183 cm
Provenance
Private collection, UK
Historical context
Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
The wristwatch displaces the pocket watch; waterproof cases, self-winding and grand complications.
Between 1900 and 1945 clocks were electrified: master-clock systems ran factories and offices, synchronous mains clocks entered homes, and the Shortt free-pendulum clock set new standards of accuracy before the first quartz clocks (1927). Art Deco design reshaped mantel and table clocks.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Industrial Revolution
Atlas type guide
Longcase (tall-case or grandfather) clocks
The longcase clock was born from two seventeenth-century innovations: Christiaan Huygens's pendulum (1656–57) and the anchor escapement (c. 1670). A long seconds pendulum, nearly a metre long, swings with a small arc, and enclosing it together with the driving weights in a tall wooden case protected the mechanism and created a new piece of furniture. London makers such as Ahasuerus Fromanteel, Thomas Tompion and Joseph Knibb set the pattern.
By the eighteenth century longcase clocks were made throughout Britain, the Netherlands, Scandinavia (the Swedish Mora clock), France (the Comtoise from the Franche-Comté), Germany and colonial America. Eight-day movements with two weights became standard in better clocks; thirty-hour clocks with one weight and a rope or chain were cheaper alternatives.
What to look for
- Winding holes in the dial: two (eight-day, going and striking) or none (thirty-hour, pulled up by a chain).
- Brass dials with applied chapter rings (earlier) versus painted iron 'white' dials (after c. 1770 in Britain).
- Moon-phase arches, date apertures, seconds dials and maker's name on the dial.
- Case woods and style: ebonised, walnut marquetry, lacquer, oak or mahogany; regional styles from London, Lancashire, Scotland or America.
- Whether the movement and dial match the case — 'marriages' are common.
Dating clues
- Square brass dials suggest c. 1670–1720; arched brass dials c. 1715–1790.
- Painted (white) dials were made by Birmingham dial-makers from about 1772.
- Comtoise clocks with repoussé pendulums are mostly nineteenth century.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
Read next:Deadbeat escapementAnchor escapement
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