Clocks · Long-case clock
Thirty-Hour Longcase clock
- Maker / attribution
- David Collier (Made by)
- Date
- 1760–1770
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- British Isles
- Place
- Gatley Green
- Object type
- Long-case clock
- Materials / technique
- brass
- Holding institution
- British Museum
- Accession / object no.
- 2010,8029.21
- Credit line
- British Museum, London
- Catalogue title (original)
- Thirty-Hour Longcase clock (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by British Museum (object number 2010,8029.21), this is a long-case clock by David Collier, made in Gatley Green, British Isles, dated 1760–1770. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: brass. 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
Description — British Museum
Thirty-Hour Longcase clock. Case: Stained-oak case with forward sliding hood with plain frieze and plain flat top. Free-standing columns to the sides of the hood door with brass mounted capitals and bases. Brass knob to the hood door. The trunk has canted corners with Doric quarter columns and the hinged door has a shaped concave top and a brass knob.… The plain rectangular base has canted corners, standing on bracket feet. Dial: Brass segmented 'cartwheel' dial plate. The matted central area is engraved with assymetrical foliage above and below the centre. Above VI is a square aperture which reveals the silvered brass ring engraved 1-31 for the date. Applied gilt-brass urn-pattern spendrels. Applied silvered-brass chapter ring with Roman hours I-XII and stylised fleur-de-lys half-hour marks. Around the outside are two concentric circles, the inner divided to quarter-hours and the outer divided to five-minute intervals. Pierced blued-steel hand with a long pointer extending to the five-minute circle. Movement: Thirty-hour, weight-driven movement with rectangular brass plates and four single-knop brass pillars. Brass shrounds for the Huygens endless chain drive. Two-wheel going train, the brass wheels with four crossings. Anchor escapement witha brass escape wheel with four crossings. Pendulum control, the pendulum with steel rod and brass-fronted lead bob. Striking train with three brass wheels, each with four crossings, and a fly-pinion with brass vanes. Hour striking I-XI controlled by a count-wheel running on a stud mounted on the back plate and striking on a gold-coloured bell mounted on a standard screwed to the back plate. The motion work consistes of a pinion of report on the extended great-wheel arbor which drives a central dial wheel. This wheel carries a brass twelve-point star wheel for strike release. A pinion on the hour wheel drives an intermediate wheel with a pin which advances the date ring. The drive chain passes around a brass pulley and through a lead 'doughnut' counter-weight.
Curator's comments — British Museum
The original rope drive has been replaced by a chain system. The collets, shrouds and spiked wheels are modern. There is wear in the lower right side bottom pillar showing the former use of a rope system. The bell is modern. The steel parts have been badly rusted in the past and are now deeply pitted. The pendulum rod is modern.
Inscriptions & marks
inscription; chapter ring; Davd = Collier Gattley
Provenance
Donated by:, Michael Grange; Acquired 2010
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:Deadbeat escapementAnchor escapement
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