Clocks · Alarm clock
Alarm Clock - Red Riding Hood, Smiths English Clocks Ltd, 1952
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- 1952
- Historical period
- Modern Mechanical Horology (1945 – 1969)
- Country of origin
- England
- Object type
- Alarm clock
- Dimensions
- 20 cm (Length), 6 cm (Width), 14 cm (Height)
- Holding institution
- Museums Victoria, Melbourne
- Accession / object no.
- ST 25244
- Catalogue title (original)
- Alarm Clock - Red Riding Hood, Smiths English Clocks Ltd, 1952 (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Museums Victoria, Melbourne (object number ST 25244), this is an alarm clock, made in England, dated 1952. The Atlas places it in the Modern Mechanical Horology period (1945 – 1969) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: 20 cm (Length), 6 cm (Width), 14 cm (Height). The record is illustrated with 2 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
Summary — Museums Victoria
Mantel alarm clock with white plastic case. Dial is painted with scene of red riding hood and wolf in woods. The wolf holds a stick which beats the balance. The alarm plays the tune 'Who's afraid of the big bad wolf' by means of a steel comb activated by pins on a brass cylinder. Manufactured by Smiths English Clocks Ltd, 1952.
Physical description — Museums Victoria
Mantel clock, white plastic case. Dial is painted with scene of red riding hood and wolf in woods. White arabic numerals, black hands for time, and a short copper hand for alarm. Spring wound; lever escapement.
Inscriptions & marks
Dial is marked 'Smiths Music Call' and 'Made in Great Britain'. Back of case marked 'Smiths English Clocks Limited, Made in England'.
Provenance
Purchase
Historical context
Modern Mechanical Horology (1945 – 1969)
Tool watches for divers, pilots and astronauts; electric watches anticipate the electronic age.
Post-war clocks combined new materials and industrial design: plastic and metal cases, battery-powered transistor movements from the late 1950s, and design classics by George Nelson, Max Bill and others. The first caesium atomic clock (1955) moved the definition of time from astronomy to physics.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking
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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