Clocks · Longcase clock
Grandfather Clock by William Smith, London
- Maker / attribution
- William Smith (maker)
- Date
- mid 18th century
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- London
- Object type
- Longcase clock
- Stock no.
- 1022
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, Pendulum of Mayfair (1022)
- Catalogue title (original)
- Antique Grandfather Clock by William Smith – London mid 18th century (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Pendulum of Mayfair (dealer), London (stock number 1022), this is a longcase clock by William Smith, made in London, England, dated mid 18th century. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. The record is illustrated with 6 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 — Pendulum of Mayfair
A superb chinoiserie decorated grandfather clock with the dial signed on a silvered cartouche William Smith London. The 10inch brass square dial with lovely brass spandrels and silvered chapter ring with Roman numerals. The centre with fine matting and subsidiary seconds and calendar apertures. The 5 pillar good quality movement striking the hours on a single bell. The lovely decorated lacquer-work cabinet with flat top to the hood with fretwork beneath, long decorated trunk door with applied moulding. Decorated base panel with sce4nes and gold leaf decoration. All standing on a shaped single plinth. William Smith is recorded as working, as a clockmaker, in Cheapside, London from 1750 to 1780. A very well respected clockmaking family who made clocks for members of the royal family. One is engraved “This clock was made In the Year 1763 For her ROYAL HIGHNESS the PRINCESS AMELIA By W Smith Moorfields 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
Longcase (tall-case or grandfather) clocks
The longcase clock was born from two seventeenth-century innovations: Christiaan Huygens's pendulum (1656–57) and the anchor escapement (c. 1670). A long seconds pendulum, nearly a metre long, swings with a small arc, and enclosing it together with the driving weights in a tall wooden case protected the mechanism and created a new piece of furniture. London makers such as Ahasuerus Fromanteel, Thomas Tompion and Joseph Knibb set the pattern.
By the eighteenth century longcase clocks were made throughout Britain, the Netherlands, Scandinavia (the Swedish Mora clock), France (the Comtoise from the Franche-Comté), Germany and colonial America. Eight-day movements with two weights became standard in better clocks; thirty-hour clocks with one weight and a rope or chain were cheaper alternatives.
What to look for
- Winding holes in the dial: two (eight-day, going and striking) or none (thirty-hour, pulled up by a chain).
- Brass dials with applied chapter rings (earlier) versus painted iron 'white' dials (after c. 1770 in Britain).
- Moon-phase arches, date apertures, seconds dials and maker's name on the dial.
- Case woods and style: ebonised, walnut marquetry, lacquer, oak or mahogany; regional styles from London, Lancashire, Scotland or America.
- Whether the movement and dial match the case — 'marriages' are common.
Dating clues
- Square brass dials suggest c. 1670–1720; arched brass dials c. 1715–1790.
- Painted (white) dials were made by Birmingham dial-makers from about 1772.
- Comtoise clocks with repoussé pendulums 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.
Read next:Anchor (recoil) escapementDeadbeat escapementAnchor escapement
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