Clocks · Bracket clock
Bracket clock by Weeks Museum, Coventry Street, London, c. 1810
- Maker / attribution
- Weeks Museum (maker)
- Date
- c. 1810
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- Coventry Street, London
- Object type
- Bracket clock
- Dimensions
- Height 25.5 cm
- Stock no.
- SKU 435
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, Howard Walwyn (SKU 435)
- Catalogue title (original)
- WEEKS MUSEUM. A rare striking and repeating bracket clock made for the Chinese market. (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Howard Walwyn Fine Antique Clocks (dealer), London (stock number SKU 435), this is a bracket clock by Weeks Museum, made in Coventry Street, London, England, dated c. 1810. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: Height 25.5 cm. The record is illustrated with 3 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 rare striking and repeating bracket clock made for the Chinese market, the 3 ¾ inch enamel and foliate engraved brass dial with centre seconds and subsidiary dials for Strike/Silent and Rise/Fall. The attractive miniature ebonised case has a 3-padtop and brass mouldings surmounted by a brass carrying handle. Date : circa 1810 Height : 10 in (25.5 cm) Width : 6 ¾ in (17 cm) Depth : 4 ¾ in (12 cm) * Thomas Weeks ran Weeks’ Mechanical Museum or Royal Mechanical Museum in Tishborne Street, Haymarket, London from 1788 until he moved his collection to Coventry Street in the early 1800’s. It was sold by auction in 1834 HW6249
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.
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