Clocks · Bracket clock
Burr walnut English five-glass library timepiece clock
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1880
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- England
- Object type
- Bracket clock
- Materials / technique
- walnut
- Dimensions
- Height 25 cm
- Stock no.
- Product 2819
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, The Antique Clock Company (product 2819)
- Catalogue title (original)
- A SMALL BURR WALNUT ENGLISH FIVE-GLASS LIBRARY TIMEPIECE CLOCK (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by The Antique Clock Company (dealer), Dorset (stock number Product 2819), this is a bracket clock, made in England, dated c. 1880. The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: walnut. Recorded dimensions: Height 25 cm. 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
Dealer description — The Antique Clock Company
A beautifully proportioned small burr walnut English fusee five-glass library timepiece clock. The fine robust chained single fusee, four-pillared movement within thick solid plates, signed on the backplate Birch & Gaydon, 172 Fenchurch St., London with anchor pendulum escapement. The 3 ¾” finely engraved silvered dial features Roman numerals, fleur-de-lis blued steel hands and foliate swags and swirls to each corner of the dial, also signed Birch & Gaydon, 172 Fenchurch St., London. The beautifully small case is surmounted by a glazed panel within a stepped cornice over bevelled glass sides to a stepped and moulded plinth with a recessed burr panel on block feet. Birch & Gaydon: This firm of watch, clock and chronometer manufacturers, silversmiths and jewellers was founded by William Birch, becoming Birch and Gaydon Limited in 1877. It had premises at 173 Fenchurch Street (1841-73 – premises occupied 1825-40 by William Turner, watch and chronometer maker); 172 Fenchurch Street (1874-1905); and 153 Fenchurch Street (1905-). Height: 10” or 25 cm
Provenance
Private collection – U.K.
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
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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