Clocks · Longcase clock
Small oak longcase clock by Thomas Phippard, Poole, c. 1760
- Maker / attribution
- Thomas Phippard (maker)
- Date
- c. 1760
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- Poole
- Object type
- Longcase clock
- Materials / technique
- oak
- Dimensions
- Height 6 ft 5 in (196 cm)
- Stock no.
- Product 439
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, P A Oxley (product 439)
- Catalogue title (original)
- Small oak longcase clock by Thomas Phippard of Poole (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by P A Oxley (dealer), Wiltshire (stock number Product 439), this is a longcase clock by Thomas Phippard, made in Poole, England, dated c. 1760. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: oak. Recorded dimensions: Height 6 ft 5 in (196 cm). 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
Dealer description — P A Oxley
A very desirable small oak longcase clock of excellent proportions. The 8 day duration movement striking the hours on a bell and with a 12" square full brass dial with silvered brass chapter ring showing Roman Numerals and Arabic minutes. Also with and elaborately engraved silvered brass centre showing flowers, scrolls and foliage. The centre also with seconds, square date aperture and beautifully made blued steel hands. The makers name and place of work engraved to the base of the chapter ring. The corners with brass urn spandrels. The deep coloured solid oak case of very neat proportions with a long trunk door and a plain base standing on a single plinth. The flat top hood with solid beech angle pillars and capitals to the glazed hood door and repeated to the rear of the hood with quarter pillars. Note: Thomas Phippard was born in 1722 and is recorded as a Watchmaker. He died in 1768. This style and design of longcase clock has become increasingly popular in recent years. Subsequently, good original examples are now becoming very difficult to find. Maker Thomas Phippard of Poole
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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