Clocks · Marine clock
Marine Clock - Walsh, Jones & Co, Melbourne, c. 1855
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1855
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Marine clock
- Dimensions
- 12 cm (Height), 29 cm (Outside Diameter)
- Holding institution
- Museums Victoria, Melbourne
- Accession / object no.
- ST 19114
- Catalogue title (original)
- Marine Clock - Walsh, Jones & Co, Melbourne, circa 1855 (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Museums Victoria, Melbourne (object number ST 19114), this is a marine clock, dated c. 1855. The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: 12 cm (Height), 29 cm (Outside Diameter). 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
Summary — Museums Victoria
Marine clock, Walsh, Jones & Co, Melbourne, circa 1855. Walsh Jones & Co was a short-lived partnership in Melbourne in 1854-1855, between Henry S. Walsh (1806-1877), a Melbourne clock and watch maker and retailer, and Edwin Jones of Melbourne. The clock face gives the firm's address as London, but this was a common practice for Melbourne firms that were importing and retailing English made clocks. The back of the clock face is marked, 'I[?] Jones, Nelson Place', presumably Williamstown, the port for Melbourne. This clock was used on the HMVS Nelson, which served as a training ship in the Victorian Colonial Navy from 1867 to about 1895.
Physical description — Museums Victoria
Marine wall clock with round carved case. Brass dial has opening showing the escapement. This arrangement of mechanism was made mainly for marine clocks. Spring wound; lever escapement with fusee.
Inscriptions & marks
Front of face inscribed: 'Walsh, Jones & Co, London'. Back of face inscribed: 'I[?]. Jones, Nelson Place'. Repairers mark also on back face: '13/10/72'.
Provenance
Loan & Subsequent Bequest from Mr John Askew, 30 Apr 1982
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
Domestic clocks
A clock combines four systems: a source of power (falling weight, coiled spring, or later electricity), a gear train that divides time, an escapement and oscillator that regulate it (foliot, pendulum or balance), and an indicating system of dial and hands or a bell. Its history runs from the large iron weight-driven clocks of the late thirteenth century to Renaissance spring-driven table clocks, the pendulum revolution of 1656, the factory clocks of the nineteenth century and electric and quartz clocks of the twentieth.
Domestic clocks also reflect regional furniture and decorative traditions — English longcase and bracket clocks, French pendules, Viennese regulators, Black Forest and American shelf clocks — and therefore record changing tastes as much as technical progress.
What to look for
- How the clock is powered: weights, spring barrel, fusee, electric coil.
- The oscillator: foliot, short pendulum, long seconds pendulum or balance.
- Whether it strikes: hour only (count wheel) or hours and quarters (rack striking).
- The maker or retailer's name on dial and movement, and any factory trademarks.
- Signs of alteration — replaced dials, converted escapements, 'married' cases.
Dating clues
- Before 1656 clocks used foliots or balances; after, most domestic clocks have pendulums.
- Anchor escapements spread after c. 1670; minute hands became common at the same time.
- Factory production in America and Germany transformed prices after c. 1840.
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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