Clocks · Bracket clock
Bracket clock, England, c. 1790
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1790
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- Gloucester Street, London
- Object type
- Bracket clock
- Dimensions
- Height 46 cm
- Stock no.
- SKU 25
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, Howard Walwyn (SKU 25)
- Catalogue title (original)
- JOHN SCOTT (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Howard Walwyn Fine Antique Clocks (dealer), London (stock number SKU 25), this is a bracket clock, made in Gloucester Street, London, England, dated c. 1790. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: Height 46 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 finely proportioned mahogany bell top bracket clock with two subsidiary dials and verge escapement. The case of the classic style of the period with well figured, steeply curved bell top has engraved brass frets and brass mouldings to the front door. Brass centre carrying handle and brass bracket feet. The arched brass dial has subsidiary dials in the arch for Strike/Silent and Rise/Fall regulation with the signature as above engraved on a silvered brass plaque between. The hands are of blued steel, those for the subsidiaries being particularly elegantly pierced. The 8 Day fusee movement with beautifully engraved backplate has spring suspended verge escapement, hour strike on a bell with pull hour repeat and Strike/Silent. Date: circa 1790 Height to top of case: 18 in (46 cm) Height including handle: 20 in (51 cm) * Britten notes that John Scott was in business at 40 Gloucester Street Red Lion Square and that a bracket clock of his of about 1775 was in the Wetherfield Collection. Baillie shows him as free of the Clockmakers’ Company from 1781 to 1794. Signed / Inscribed John Scott, Gloucester Street, 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:Anchor (recoil) escapement
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