Clocks · Longcase clock
London longcase clock by King, Ratcliff Highway, c. 1780
- Maker / attribution
- King (maker)
- Date
- c. 1780
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- Ratcliff Highway
- Object type
- Longcase clock
- Materials / technique
- mahogany
- Dimensions
- Height 7 ft 2 in (218 cm)
- Stock no.
- Product 118
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, P A Oxley (product 118)
- Catalogue title (original)
- London Longcase Clock by King of Ratcliff Highway (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by P A Oxley (dealer), Wiltshire (stock number Product 118), this is a longcase clock by King, made in Ratcliff Highway, England, dated c. 1780. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: mahogany. Recorded dimensions: Height 7 ft 2 in (218 cm). The record is illustrated with 4 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
An excellent London longcase clock of good colour and proportions. The high quality 8 day duration 5 pillar movement striking the hours on a bell. The 12" arched brass dial has a separate silvered brass chapter ring, a silvered brass centre, square date aperture and with the makers name and place of work elaborately engraved across the whole centre of the dial. The dial also displays finely made blued steel hour and minute hands and a seconds hand below the number XII. The arch of the dial is engraved with a strike/silent facility, the corners and arch are surmounted with matching brass spandrels. The typical London case of excellent proportions features high quality mahogany veneer to both the trunk door and base. The latter with a raised rectangular panel and a shaped double plinth standing on two mahogany pads. The hood has typical brass inlaid reeded pillars with brass Doric capitals, quarter pillars to the rear, inspection windows to the side and a plain broken arched top. Note: The Highway, formerly known as the Ratcliffe Highway, is a road in the East End of London. The route dates back to Roman times. In the 19th century it had a reputation for vice and crime and was the location of the Ratcliff Highway murders.
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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