Clocks · Wall clock
Beachy Head Lighthouse Clock 11986 by Atkins Brockbank & Moore
- Maker / attribution
- Atkins Brockbank & Moore (maker)
- Date
- c. 1860
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Wall clock
- Dimensions
- Overall: 365 x 365 x 150 mm
- Holding institution
- Royal Museums Greenwich
- Accession / object no.
- ZAA0127
- Credit line
- National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
- Catalogue title (original)
- Beachy Head Lighthouse Clock 11986 (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Royal Museums Greenwich (object number ZAA0127), this is a wall clock by Atkins Brockbank & Moore, dated c. 1860. The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: Overall: 365 x 365 x 150 mm. 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
Catalogue description — Royal Museums Greenwich
An eight-day mahogany cased dial clock made by Brockbank, Atkins & Moore, London, number 11986, circa 1860. This timepiece was made specifically for the Belle Tout lighthouse which was built in 1828 on the headland at Beachy Head, Sussex. Every lighthouse has its own signatory "character" (the sequence and frequency of flashes) so that mariners can identify a lighthouse from its signal. The clock has a subsidiary dial to help regulate the light to its original character of one flash every 15 seconds. The Belle Tout lighthouse was frequently obscured by fog and in 1902 a replacement equipped with a fog horn was built on the foreshore. In 1999 the old lighthouse building was moved 50 metres away from the cliff edge and now serves as a hotel.
Historical context
Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
American interchangeable-parts manufacture; railroad time standards; Swiss and German factory systems.
Factory production transformed the clock into an everyday object. American makers (Seth Thomas, Ansonia, Waterbury) and German factories (Junghans, Gustav Becker, Lenzkirch) sold millions of shelf, wall and alarm clocks worldwide; France produced standardised Paris movements and carriage clocks; electric time distribution began.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Precision & Scientific Horology
Atlas type guide
Regulators, wall and Vienna clocks
A regulator is a precision pendulum clock used as a time standard in observatories, workshops and railway offices. Typical features are a deadbeat or Graham escapement, a temperature-compensated pendulum (mercury jar, gridiron or later invar), maintaining power and a regulator dial that separates hours, minutes and seconds. George Graham's deadbeat escapement (c. 1715) and his mercury pendulum, together with Harrison's gridiron, set the pattern for two centuries.
Wall clocks span a much wider range: the elegant Viennese Laterndluhr and Dachluhr of the Biedermeier period, the Dutch stoelklok and staartklok, English 'dial' clocks used in schools, offices and railway stations, and mass-produced spring and weight wall clocks from Germany (Gustav Becker, Junghans, Kienzle) and America.
What to look for
- Deadbeat escapement and compensated pendulum (gridiron rods, mercury jar or wood rod).
- A regulator dial with a large central minute hand and separate hour and seconds dials.
- Vienna regulators: glazed cases, slender pendulum, small weights, enamel two-piece dials.
- German factory trademarks stamped on the backplate (e.g. Gustav Becker anchor and crown, Junghans star).
Dating clues
- Graham-type deadbeat regulators: from c. 1720.
- Viennese Laterndluhr: c. 1800–1850.
- German factory 'Vienna-style' regulators: c. 1870–1930; Gustav Becker serial numbers allow close dating.
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 (recoil) escapementGrasshopper escapement
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