Clocks · Escape wheels
Brass anchor escape wheel from long-case clock made by Ahasuerus Fromanteel, London, 1660-1665..
- Maker / attribution
- Fromanteel, Ahasuerus (maker) (maker); Ahasuerus Fromanteel (maker)
- Date
- 1660-1665
- Historical period
- Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom, London
- Object type
- Escape wheels
- Holding institution
- Science Museum Group, London
- Accession / object no.
- 1980-244 Pt7
- Credit line
- Estate of Lady E M Hunting.
- Catalogue title (original)
- Escape wheel from long-case clock by Fromanteel
Record summary
Held and catalogued by Science Museum Group, London (object number 1980-244 Pt7), this is an escape wheels by Fromanteel, Ahasuerus (maker), made in London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom, London, dated 1660-1665. The Atlas places it in the Early Modern Horology period (1600 – 1750) of its Clocks collection. The record is illustrated with 4 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
Science Museum Group description
The Fromanteel family produced the first pendulum clocks in England, following the visit of Fromanteel’s son John to Holland (Netherlands). He learned to make these new clocks from Salomon Coster who had an agreement with Christiaan Huygens to use his idea. Clocks now became accurate enough to have minute hands.
Historical context
Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
Huygens' pendulum and balance spring transform accuracy; English makers develop the anchor and deadbeat escapements.
Huygens's pendulum (1656–57) improved clock accuracy from about a quarter of an hour to under a minute a day. The anchor escapement (c. 1670) and the long seconds pendulum created the longcase clock; London makers such as Fromanteel, Knibb, Tompion and Quare led European clockmaking, and French makers created the Boulle pendule.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Renaissance Horology
Atlas type guide
Domestic clocks
A clock combines four systems: a source of power (falling weight, coiled spring, or later electricity), a gear train that divides time, an escapement and oscillator that regulate it (foliot, pendulum or balance), and an indicating system of dial and hands or a bell. Its history runs from the large iron weight-driven clocks of the late thirteenth century to Renaissance spring-driven table clocks, the pendulum revolution of 1656, the factory clocks of the nineteenth century and electric and quartz clocks of the twentieth.
Domestic clocks also reflect regional furniture and decorative traditions — English longcase and bracket clocks, French pendules, Viennese regulators, Black Forest and American shelf clocks — and therefore record changing tastes as much as technical progress.
What to look for
- How the clock is powered: weights, spring barrel, fusee, electric coil.
- The oscillator: foliot, short pendulum, long seconds pendulum or balance.
- Whether it strikes: hour only (count wheel) or hours and quarters (rack striking).
- The maker or retailer's name on dial and movement, and any factory trademarks.
- Signs of alteration — replaced dials, converted escapements, 'married' cases.
Dating clues
- Before 1656 clocks used foliots or balances; after, most domestic clocks have pendulums.
- Anchor escapements spread after c. 1670; minute hands became common at the same time.
- Factory production in America and Germany transformed prices after c. 1840.
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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