Clocks · Bracket clock
Cade & Robinson, c. 1810
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1810
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- London
- Object type
- Bracket clock
- Dimensions
- Height 41 cm
- Stock no.
- SKU 30
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, Howard Walwyn (SKU 30)
- Catalogue title (original)
- CADE & ROBINSON (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Howard Walwyn Fine Antique Clocks (dealer), London (stock number SKU 30), this is a bracket clock, made in London, England, dated c. 1810. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: Height 41 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 — Howard Walwyn
A good late George III period enamel dial mahogany bracket clock by these eminent makers. The elegant three padtop case, veneered with finely figured mahogany of good colour and patination, has a brass carrying handle and a full opening front door with a cast brass bezel and convex glass. The white convex enamel dial, 7 inches in diameter, has Roman hour numerals and minute divisions. The blued steel hands are of the delicate interlacing scroll pattern. The movement runs for 8 days and strikes the hours on a bell. There is a repeat cord for repeating the previous hour. The backplate is beautifully engraved with flowers and foliage. Height: 16 in (41cm) * Cade and Robinson were very fine makers and they are listed on page 49 of Baillie’s Clockmakers of the World as working in the early 19th century. This fine clock is illustrated in Britten’s Clocks and Clockmakers page 204. Signed / Inscribed CADE & ROBINSON 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.
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