Clocks · Bracket clock
Exceptionally high quality lancet top table clock by John Grant, Fleet St, London, c. 1805
- Maker / attribution
- John Grant (maker)
- Date
- c. 1805
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- Fleet St, London
- Object type
- Bracket clock
- Materials / technique
- ebony
- Dimensions
- Height 16 in (41 cm)
- Stock no.
- Product 233
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, P A Oxley (product 233)
- Catalogue title (original)
- An exceptionally high quality Lancet Top Table Clock by John Grant, Fleet St, London (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by P A Oxley (dealer), Wiltshire (stock number Product 233), this is a bracket clock by John Grant, made in Fleet St, London, England, dated c. 1805. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: ebony. Recorded dimensions: Height 16 in (41 cm). The record is illustrated with 5 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 — P A Oxley
The 8 day duration double fusee movement striking the hours and half hour on a bell and with unusual Lancet shaped plates. The movement with 5 plate pillars, strike/silent facility to the backplate and pull repeat. The silvered brass round dial with matching blued steel hands and signed by the maker. The movement stamped with the Makers mark of Handley & Moore, No: 3006, a well known Clockmaker of the period who worked for John Grant. The Lancet Top case elaborately decorated with gilded brass mounts and exceptional Partridge Wood veneers incorporating extensive ebony, boxwood and birds eye maple inlay. The sides with silk lined gilded brass frets and lion face handles. The base standing on four gilded brass paw feet. Note: Handley & Moore were originally apprenticed to Thwaites. They specialised in supplying high quality movements to the trade. Handley died in 1824 and Moore continued the business on his own. John Grant Snr was an eminent maker and a prolific maker of Clocks & Watches. Maker John Grant, Fleet St, 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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