Clocks · Alarm clock
Alarm clock, Germany, 1650
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- 1650
- Historical period
- Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
- Country of origin
- Germany
- Place
- Germany
- Object type
- Alarm clock
- Materials / technique
- Gilt brass
- Holding institution
- Victoria and Albert Museum, London
- Accession / object no.
- M.14-1981
- Credit line
- Bequeathed by R.M. Palmer
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Victoria and Albert Museum, London (object number M.14-1981), this is an alarm clock, made in Germany, dated 1650. The Atlas places it in the Early Modern Horology period (1600 – 1750) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: Gilt brass. The record is illustrated with 4 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
Physical description — Victoria and Albert Museum
Clock watch with circular dial, made of gilded brass
Brief description — Victoria and Albert Museum
Clock watch, gilded brass, c.1650. Potentially German
Historical context
Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
Huygens' pendulum and balance spring transform accuracy; English makers develop the anchor and deadbeat escapements.
Huygens's pendulum (1656–57) improved clock accuracy from about a quarter of an hour to under a minute a day. The anchor escapement (c. 1670) and the long seconds pendulum created the longcase clock; London makers such as Fromanteel, Knibb, Tompion and Quare led European clockmaking, and French makers created the Boulle pendule.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Renaissance Horology
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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