Clocks · Bracket clock
Bracket clock by Geo. Binns, Covent Garden London, c. 1830
- Maker / attribution
- Geo. Binns (maker)
- Date
- c. 1830
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- Covent Garden London
- Object type
- Bracket clock
- Stock no.
- SKU 23
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, Howard Walwyn (SKU 23)
- Catalogue title (original)
- GEO. BINNS. A fine and small rosewood chamfer top Bracket Clock. (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Howard Walwyn Fine Antique Clocks (dealer), London (stock number SKU 23), this is a bracket clock by Geo. Binns, made in Covent Garden London, England, dated c. 1830. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. 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
Dealer description — Howard Walwyn
A fine and small rosewood chamfer top Bracket Clock with a number of interesting features. The case of finely figured rosewood with shallow chamfer top and standing on brass ball feet has brass edged quarter panels, brass banding to the front corners and double stringing to the base panel. The painted convex dial 6 inches in diameter has Roman numerals, double minutes circle and Strike/Silent lever above XII. The signature as above is written above and below the centre. Blued steel hands with pierced tips. The 8 Day fusee movement is very elegantly engraved to the base of the substantial backplate with the extended signature Geo. Binns Maiden Lane Covent Garden London (quite an unusual refinement in a clock of this period) Anchor escapement with heavy brass bob to the pendulum with inverted rating screw. Hour strike on a bell with pull repeat and Strike/Silent Date: circa 1830 Height to centre finial: 15 ½ in (39.50 cm) * Loomes notes that George Binns was in business from 1828 to 1832. In the 18th and 19th centuries a number of well-known clockmakers were established in the Covent Garden area. These days, Maiden Lane is probably better known as the site of a fine and long established restaurant. Signed / Inscribed GEO. BINNS Covent Garden LONDON
Historical context
Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
Harrison solves longitude; Mudge invents the lever; Breguet's Paris workshop defines the modern watch.
The age of the deadbeat escapement, compensated pendulums and observatory regulators. Domestic clocks spread through the middle classes: English longcase and bracket clocks, French gilt-bronze mantel clocks, Viennese Biedermeier wall clocks, Black Forest painted-shield clocks, and the first American shelf clocks.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Early Modern Horology
Atlas type guide
Bracket, table and spring-driven clocks
Spring-driven clocks freed timekeeping from the hanging weight. The coiled mainspring, documented from the fifteenth century, made portable table clocks possible; to even out its declining force, makers used the fusee, a conical pulley connected to the barrel by a gut line or chain. Renaissance table clocks from Augsburg and Nuremberg — drum-shaped, square or tower-shaped in gilt brass — were luxury scientific objects, often with astronomical dials and alarms.
After the pendulum, English makers developed the bracket clock: a wooden case with a carrying handle, a short pendulum with a verge escapement, and often repeating work to sound the hours on demand at night. Later examples use the anchor escapement. In the nineteenth century, 'table clock' became a broad term for spring clocks of every nationality.
What to look for
- A fusee in the movement (cone-shaped pulley) and the type of line — gut or chain.
- Verge escapement with a short bob pendulum, often with a decoratively engraved backplate.
- Repeat cords or buttons that make the clock strike again on demand.
- Gilt-brass engraved cases and horizontal dials on Renaissance pieces.
- Case shapes: inverted bell, bell top, break-arch, lancet or balloon.
Dating clues
- Drum and tower table clocks: c. 1520–1650.
- Ebony veneered English bracket clocks with verge escapements: c. 1670–1800.
- Engraved backplates were usual on English clocks until c. 1800, then generally plain.
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:Verge escapement
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