Clocks · Alarm clock
Alarm Clock - France, c. 1920
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1920
- Historical period
- Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
- Country of origin
- France
- Object type
- Alarm clock
- Dimensions
- 13 cm (Length), 6 cm (Width), 23 cm (Height)
- Holding institution
- Museums Victoria, Melbourne
- Accession / object no.
- ST 19369
- Catalogue title (original)
- Alarm Clock - France, circa 1920 (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Museums Victoria, Melbourne (object number ST 19369), this is an alarm clock, made in France, dated c. 1920. The Atlas places it in the Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking period (1900 – 1945) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: 13 cm (Length), 6 cm (Width), 23 cm (Height). The record is illustrated with 1 photograph.
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
Physical description — Museums Victoria
Round metal case, with two short silver-painted legs at front. Case is surmounted by a frame supporting a copper-plated pear shaped bell. Has a white card dial with black hands and roman numerals. Alarm dial is at 12 and seconds hand is at 6. Spring wound.
Inscriptions & marks
Dial is marked 'French Make'.
Provenance
Loan & Subsequent Bequest from Mr John Askew, 30 Apr 1928
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
Alarm clocks
Alarm work is among the oldest clock functions: monastic clocks woke monks for night prayers, and Renaissance table clocks often carried an alarm disc set by a pin. A separate spring or weight is released at the set time and drives a hammer against a bell. Some early alarms also lit a candle by striking a flint — the 'tinder pistol' alarm.
The cheap, mass-produced alarm clock arrived in the second half of the nineteenth century. American firms such as Seth Thomas and Westclox (the 'Big Ben' of 1910) and German makers such as Junghans and Kienzle made millions of drum-shaped alarms with pin-pallet escapements. Electric, quartz and digital alarm clocks followed in the twentieth century.
What to look for
- A separate alarm-setting dial or disc and an extra winding key.
- Twin bells on top (common after c. 1920) or a bell enclosed in the base.
- Pin-pallet escapements in inexpensive factory alarms.
- Trademarks and patent dates on dial or back.
Dating clues
- Renaissance alarm table clocks: sixteenth to seventeenth centuries.
- Drum alarm clocks: from the 1870s.
- Luminous dials with radium paint: c. 1910–1960.
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.
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