Clocks · Double dialled longcase clock
Longcase clock by Hartley, E., England, 1800-1820
- Maker / attribution
- Hartley, E. (maker)
- Date
- 1800-1820
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- Macclesfield, Cheshire, England, United Kingdom, Macclesfield
- Object type
- Double dialled longcase clock
- Dimensions
- Overall: 2470 mm x 280 mm x 620 mm, 70 kg
- Holding institution
- Science Museum Group, London
- Accession / object no.
- Y1971.28
- Credit line
- Purchased From Auction
- Catalogue title (original)
- Park Green Mill Double Dialled Longcase Clock
Record summary
Held and catalogued by Science Museum Group, London (object number Y1971.28), this is a double dialled longcase clock by Hartley, E., made in Macclesfield, Cheshire, England, United Kingdom, Macclesfield, dated 1800-1820. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: Overall: 2470 mm x 280 mm x 620 mm, 70 kg. 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
Science Museum Group description
Manchester’s mill workers toiled in time with their machines. The new system of textiles manufacturing changed the way they organised their daily lives. Winter or summer, rain or shine, the machines set the pace and the factory clock told them when to work and when to rest. In the mills, time was money, and some manufacturers tried to control the time in their factories in order to maintain productivity and profits. This double dialled clock from Park Green silk mill in Macclesfield helped mill owners Michael Daintry and John Ryle do this. It was installed in the mill in 1810. The bottom face of the clock showed the real time. The top face showed ‘mill time’. Its hands were connected to the mill’s water wheel and like the mill's machines, the clock’s hands only moved when the water wheel ran. Each morning, the mill’s engineer set the time on the ‘mill’ clock face to match the actual time, shown on the upper face. If the mill was running properly, the time shown on both faces would match. If the water flowing to the mill’s water wheel stopped or slowed down, so did ‘mill time’. In this way, the production and performance of the mill’s machines, and by that token its workers, could be checked and regulated. This system did not necessarily work to mill workers’ advantage. If ‘mill time’ ran slow, the mill owner might consider that their employees were not working as hard, and expect them to make up lost production time, working on until the clock showed the correct stopping time and resulting in even longer days of toil.
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.
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