Clocks · Clock
Late 19th century nightwatchman's clock
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- Late 19th century
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Clock
- Dimensions
- Height 12 in (30 cm)
- Auction house
- Gardiner Houlgate (auction house), Corsham
- Lot
- Sale 41, lot 1346
- Credit line
- Auction lot record: lot 1346, Fine Clocks & Related Items, Gardiner Houlgate (21st May 2026)
- Catalogue title (original)
- Late 19th century nightwatchman's clock, the 6" dial with Arabic numerals, illuminated by a small paraffin lamp, key wound movement, the ebonised base with rope-twist and mask mounts, on block feet, 1 (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Gardiner Houlgate (auction house), Corsham (lot Sale 41, lot 1346), this is a clock, dated Late 19th century. The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: Height 12 in (30 cm). 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
Lot description — Gardiner Houlgate
Late 19th century nightwatchman's clock, the 6" dial with Arabic numerals, illuminated by a small paraffin lamp, key wound movement, the ebonised base with rope-twist and mask mounts, on block feet, 12" high
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
Timers, stopwatches, chronoscopes and time recorders
Instruments for measuring short intervals or recording when something happened form a large and practical branch of horology. Sports stopwatches and split-seconds timers, laboratory chronoscopes (such as Hipp's, which measured thousandths of a second for psychology and ballistics experiments), metronomes for music, watchmen's clocks that recorded patrol rounds, and the time recorders that clocked factory workers in and out all derive from clock and watch technology.
These objects matter historically because they show timekeeping leaving the observatory and the drawing room and entering industry, science and sport. Many were mass-produced, and their dials, scales and patents chart the rise of electrification and industrial management.
What to look for
- Scales graduated in fifths, tenths or hundredths of a second, or decimal minutes for industrial use.
- Start, stop and reset push-pieces; a second hand that can be stopped independently (split seconds).
- Recording devices: paper discs or tapes, printing mechanisms, keys or punches.
- Patent numbers and dates on the dial or case, which give a terminus post quem.
Dating clues
- Hipp chronoscopes were made from the 1840s into the twentieth century.
- Employee time recorders spread from the 1890s (Bundy, IBM, International Time Recording Co.).
- Quartz and electronic timers replaced mechanical stopwatches in sport from the 1970s.
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:ChronographFlyback chronograph
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