Clocks · Clock
Clock by Charles McDowall
- Maker / attribution
- Charles McDowall (maker)
- Date
- c. 1840
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Place
- City and Borough of Wakefield
- Object type
- Clock
- Materials / technique
- metal: brass; metal: silver
- Dimensions
- Overall: 345 x 190 x 35 mm
- Holding institution
- Royal Museums Greenwich
- Accession / object no.
- ZAA0523
- Credit line
- National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Foulkes Collection
- Catalogue title (original)
- Clock (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Royal Museums Greenwich (object number ZAA0523), this is a clock by Charles McDowall, made in City and Borough of Wakefield, dated c. 1840. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: metal: brass; metal: silver. Recorded dimensions: Overall: 345 x 190 x 35 mm. The record is illustrated with 2 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
Catalogue description — Royal Museums Greenwich
An unusual skeleton timepiece of one-month duration by Charles MacDowall of Wakefield, circa 1840 The brass frame is of a simple design with a cut waist below the signed silvered dial. The dial is engraved: ‘C. McDowall’s Patent Helix Lever, No. 149, St. Johns, Wakefield’. The chain fusee movement has four wheels, all with helical gearing, and a dead-beat escapement. McDowall’s system of helical gearing gave a smoother transmission of power from the mainspring to the escapement but, owing to its involved manufacture, the design was not adopted by other clockmakers.
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
Regulators, wall and Vienna clocks
A regulator is a precision pendulum clock used as a time standard in observatories, workshops and railway offices. Typical features are a deadbeat or Graham escapement, a temperature-compensated pendulum (mercury jar, gridiron or later invar), maintaining power and a regulator dial that separates hours, minutes and seconds. George Graham's deadbeat escapement (c. 1715) and his mercury pendulum, together with Harrison's gridiron, set the pattern for two centuries.
Wall clocks span a much wider range: the elegant Viennese Laterndluhr and Dachluhr of the Biedermeier period, the Dutch stoelklok and staartklok, English 'dial' clocks used in schools, offices and railway stations, and mass-produced spring and weight wall clocks from Germany (Gustav Becker, Junghans, Kienzle) and America.
What to look for
- Deadbeat escapement and compensated pendulum (gridiron rods, mercury jar or wood rod).
- A regulator dial with a large central minute hand and separate hour and seconds dials.
- Vienna regulators: glazed cases, slender pendulum, small weights, enamel two-piece dials.
- German factory trademarks stamped on the backplate (e.g. Gustav Becker anchor and crown, Junghans star).
Dating clues
- Graham-type deadbeat regulators: from c. 1720.
- Viennese Laterndluhr: c. 1800–1850.
- German factory 'Vienna-style' regulators: c. 1870–1930; Gustav Becker serial numbers allow close dating.
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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