Clocks · Turret clock
Eight-day duration bell-striking turret clock by Gillett & Co
- Maker / attribution
- Gillett & Co. (maker)
- Date
- c. 1888
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Turret clock
- Materials / technique
- metal: brass; metal: steel; mercury
- Dimensions
- Overall: 1570 x 1050 x 600 mm
- Holding institution
- Royal Museums Greenwich
- Accession / object no.
- ZAA0110
- Credit line
- National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
- Catalogue title (original)
- Eight-day duration bell-striking turret clock (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Royal Museums Greenwich (object number ZAA0110), this is a turret clock by Gillett & Co., dated c. 1888. The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: metal: brass; metal: steel; mercury. Recorded dimensions: Overall: 1570 x 1050 x 600 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 eight-day duration bell-striking turret clock movement by Gillett and Co. Croydon, circa 1888. The twin train movement is mounted within a signed and dated cast iron flat bed and has a double 3-legged gravity escapement, zinc tube type temperature compensated pendulum and countwheel system striking the hours on a ship’s bell from the museum collection. The clock is now fitted with an electrical automatic winding system. The double 3-legged gravity escapement was designed by Denison (later Lord Grimthorpe) and is also used on the famous Great Westminster Clock. This clock was installed in the tower of the Roupell Park Methodist Church, Tulse Hill, SW2 in 1888 and drove four dials until 1967 when the church was demolished.
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
Turret, tower and public clocks
The first mechanical clocks of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were large iron striking clocks in towers, monasteries and cathedrals, driven by falling weights and controlled by a verge escapement with a foliot or wheel balance. They struck a bell rather than displaying the time, and only gradually acquired dials. Public clocks ordered civic life, regulating markets, work and worship.
From the seventeenth century the pendulum and then the anchor and pinwheel escapements made turret clocks far more accurate. In the nineteenth century firms such as Dent, Smith of Derby, Gillett & Johnston, J. F. Weule and Collin made cast-iron flatbed movements, and Edmund Beckett Denison's gravity escapement for the Great Clock of Westminster (1859) became the standard for accurate tower clocks.
What to look for
- Frame construction: early wrought-iron 'birdcage' or posted frames versus later cast-iron flatbed or plate-and-spacer frames.
- The escapement: verge and foliot, anchor, pinwheel or double three-legged gravity escapement.
- Striking and chiming trains with count wheels or rack striking.
- Maker's plates and dates cast or engraved on the frame.
Dating clues
- Wedged and riveted wrought-iron frames generally predate 1700.
- Flatbed cast-iron movements date from about 1840 onward.
- Electrical synchronisation and electric winding appear from about 1900.
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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