Clocks · Longcase clock
Regulator longcase clock by Attenborough, London
- Maker / attribution
- Attenborough (maker)
- Date
- c. 1850
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- London
- Object type
- Longcase clock
- Dimensions
- Height 193.5 cm
- Stock no.
- Product 2390
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, The Antique Clock Company (product 2390)
- Catalogue title (original)
- A BEAUTIFUL REGULATOR LONGCASE CLOCK – ATTENBOROUGH OF LONDON (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by The Antique Clock Company (dealer), Dorset (stock number Product 2390), this is a longcase clock by Attenborough, made in London, England, dated c. 1850. The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: Height 193.5 cm. The record is illustrated with 2 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 — The Antique Clock Company
The fantastic weight driven movement boasts substantial plates, six spoke wheels with high pinion counts, Harrisons maintaining power, dead beat escapement with jewelled pallets, temperature compensated mercurial pendulum located on the back board and put into beat with a fine screw beat adjustment to the crutch. The silvered engraved dial measuring 11 ¾” is of standard regulator style featuring the minutes around the outer edge and subsidiary seconds dial above the subsidiary hour dial in the centre. The dial is also engraved “Attenborough 84 Brompton Road London – This Clock Shews Greenwich Mean Time.” to the centre with original finely cut blued steel hands. The beautiful heavy mahogany case with a long glazed trunk door and mahogany base. Altogether a beautiful small longcase clock made to impeccable standards. The name ‘Attenborough’ and the number ’84’ have both been engraved over a hammered area (as can be seen from the back of the dial), the Brompton Road and GMT proclamation appear to be original. It would be sensible to assume, therefore, that Attenborough bought this regulator for his own shop or workshop from one of his retiring neighbours on the Brompton Road. Two Attenboroughs are known to have traded in London, James in 1857 and George in 1869, George took his son into partnership in 1875. Height: 76 1/4″ (6ft 4″) or 193.5cm
Provenance
Private collection – UK
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
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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