Clocks · Components; telescope drives (mechanical)
Driving clock by Cooke for telescope in fitted box (RAS No.524, Allen No.18b). Presented to the Royal Astronomical Society in 1945 by Miss G.R. Allen.
- Maker / attribution
- T. Cooke & Sons (maker)
- Date
- 1868-1880
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- York, North Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom, York
- Object type
- Components; telescope drives (mechanical)
- Dimensions
- overall: 305 x 150 mm
- Holding institution
- Science Museum Group, London
- Accession / object no.
- 1984-579
- Credit line
- Royal Astronomical Society
- Catalogue title (original)
- Driving clock by Cooke for telescope in fitted box
Record summary
Held and catalogued by Science Museum Group, London (object number 1984-579), this is a components; telescope drives (mechanical) by T. Cooke & Sons, made in York, North Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom, York, dated 1868-1880. The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: overall: 305 x 150 mm. The record is illustrated with 1 photograph.
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
The source record does not include a narrative description. The structured fields above are reproduced from it.
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
Astronomical, musical and automaton clocks
Astronomical clocks display more than the hour: the positions of the sun and moon in the zodiac, the phase of the moon, the calendar, sometimes the planets and eclipses. From Richard of Wallingford's and Giovanni de' Dondi's fourteenth-century clocks to the Prague Orloj and the Strasbourg cathedral clocks, they demonstrated the order of the cosmos. Renaissance makers in Augsburg and Nuremberg built celestial globe clocks and monstrance clocks as princely treasures.
Automaton and musical clocks entertained as well as informed: figures move, birds sing, organs and carillons play tunes from pinned cylinders. The eighteenth-century trade with China ('sing-songs') and Ottoman Turkey created a market for elaborate English, Swiss and French automata.
What to look for
- Subsidiary dials for moon phase, calendar, zodiac and planetary positions.
- Celestial globes or armillary spheres turned by the movement.
- Pinned cylinders, bellows and pipes or bells for music.
- Figures on cams and levers; separate trains for automaton work.
Dating clues
- Renaissance astronomical table and globe clocks: c. 1550–1650.
- English and Swiss automaton clocks for the Chinese market: c. 1760–1820.
- Picture clocks (clockwork pictures) are mostly nineteenth century.
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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