Instruments · Compendium, sundial, compass
Sundial by Allen, Elias, England, 1630-1653
- Maker / attribution
- Allen, Elias (maker); Elias Allen (maker)
- Date
- 1630-1653
- Historical period
- Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom, London
- Object type
- Compendium, sundial, compass
- Holding institution
- Science Museum Group, London
- Accession / object no.
- 1883-135
- Credit line
- Victoria and Albert Museum
- Catalogue title (original)
- Compendium by Elias Allen
Record summary
Held and catalogued by Science Museum Group, London (object number 1883-135), this is a compendium, sundial, compass by Allen, Elias, made in London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom, London, dated 1630-1653. The Atlas places it in the Early Modern Horology period (1600 – 1750) of its Instruments collection. 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
A compendium is a multi-function instrument. This example consists of a sundial, compass and calendar indices and was made by Elias Allen between 1630 and 1653 at his workshop near St. Clement's Church which was called 'The Bull's Head'. The sundial ring is inscribed: "Elias Allen fecit" and the outer lid is engraved with the royal coat of arms of either King James I or King Charles I, but the object has been attributed to the reign of King Charles I. Elias Allen (active 1602-1653) was a mathematical instrument maker who moved to London from Tonbridge in Kent to take up an apprenticeship with Charles Whitwell in around 1602.
Inscriptions & marks
; ;
Historical context
Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
Huygens' pendulum and balance spring transform accuracy; English makers develop the anchor and deadbeat escapements.
Pocket sundials, Butterfield dials and sandglasses remained essential companions to imperfect clocks; navigators used sandglasses and the log line; observatories began to combine telescopes with pendulum clocks.
Read the period in the timelineMore instruments from this periodEarlier: Renaissance Horology
Atlas type guide
Sundials and solar time-finders
A sundial tells time from the position of a shadow cast by a gnomon or style. Because the sun's apparent motion depends on latitude, every fixed dial is laid out for a particular latitude, and portable dials either carry a latitude scale or are made for one region. Sundials show local apparent solar time, which drifts against mean (clock) time by up to about sixteen minutes over the year — the equation of time.
Portable dials were the pocket instruments of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Nuremberg and Augsburg workshops produced folding ivory diptych dials with inset compasses; English and French makers sold brass horizontal dials, ring dials and the Butterfield type; Japanese and Chinese makers had their own traditions of compass dials. After mechanical watches became reliable, dials remained in use for setting them, and nineteenth-century heliochronometers were built to correct directly for the equation of time.
What to look for
- The latitude engraved on the dial plate or a latitude arc on the gnomon — it shows where the dial was meant to be used.
- The type of hour lines: equal (equinoctial) hours, Italian or Babylonian hours counted from sunset or sunrise, or unequal temporal hours on early and Islamic instruments.
- An inset magnetic compass and whether a magnetic-declination mark is drawn on its card — a useful dating clue because declination changes over time.
- Maker's signatures and town marks: Nuremberg compass-makers (Kompassmacher) often struck a personal mark and the town's punch.
- Additional scales such as lunar volvelles, wind roses, perpetual calendars or lists of cities with their latitudes.
Dating clues
- Ivory diptych dials are characteristic of Nuremberg between about 1500 and 1700.
- Butterfield-type dials with a bird-shaped adjustable gnomon point to Paris workshops from the late seventeenth century onward.
- Equation-of-time tables engraved on the plate became common after the mid-seventeenth century, once pendulum clocks made the difference between solar and mean time obvious.
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:The history timeline
Related records
Instruments · 1607-1653
Sundial by Allen, Elias, England, 1607-1653
Science Museum Group, London
Instruments · 1625-1635
A very high quality horizontal sundial, set out to show individual minutes and signed ‘Elias Allen fecit’. London, c.1630
Science Museum Group, London
Instruments · 1623-1700
Armillary / astronomical instrument, England, 1623-1700
Science Museum Group, London
Instruments · 1636-1700
Sundial incomplete: gnomon missing: wood, 5" square, 1636-1700
Science Museum Group, London
Instruments · 1650-1665
Folding pocket compass and sundial in boxwood case made by Henry Sutton, Threadneedle Street, London, 1650-1665.
Science Museum Group, London
Instruments · 1650-1749
Nocturnal, brass, gilt, diameter of flanged plate 4 in. Handle and pointer in form of serpents, English, late 17th or 18th century with later case
Science Museum Group, London
Instruments · 1650–1699
Nocturnal, iron, English late 17th century. (18-79) V & A M. register.
Science Museum Group, London
Instruments · 1680-1720
Engraved applewood nocturnal, a maritime device for telling the time at night from the stars. English, 1680-1720.
Victoria and Albert Museum, London