Current issue of Antiquarian Horology
Volume 45, Issue 4 December 2024
On the front cover: Detail of a silver kettle made by Edward John and Willliam Barnard, presented by the Clockmaker’s Company to Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy. It is one of the objects in the exhibition Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy: A Champion of British Craftsmanship, which is in the Clockmakers’ Museum in London until 2 November 2025. Photo: Science Museum Group / The Clockmakers’ Museum. © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum.
This issue contains the following articles:
James Cox: manufacturer and merchant – Part 1
by Roger Smith (pages 463-481)
Summary: This article has been developed from a lecture given at the University of Neuchâtel on 28 May 2013. It is in two parts, with Part 1 covering the background to Cox’s involvement in the export of clocks and watches to the ‘East Indies’ – the term commonly applied by eighteenth-century Europeans to an enormous region of South- and East Asia which included India, Indonesia and China. It also looks at the production of larger articles like clocks and automata in Cox’s own workshop and by his known collaborators. Part 2 will consider the production of jewellery and other small articles by Cox, before discussing the more restricted mercantile role that he adopted towards the end of his career.
John Harrison (1693–1776): a legacy of invention and engineering. Part 2
by Ann McBroom (pages 482-504)
Summary: John ‘Longitude’ Harrison has been the subject of multiple excellent publications detailing his life and horological achievements, some only recently confirmed. The current paper is designed as a supplement. Part I explored the genealogy of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and offers a broad summary of their lives. Part 2 looks in greater depth at the inventive and engineering skills many displayed, and explores what happened to JLH’s writings and instruments as they passed through these first few generations.
Reassessment of the painted clock dials of Thomas Pyke Sr & Jr of Bridgwater and an introduction to the painted clock dials of Cox of Taunton, Somerset. Part 2
by Nial Woodford (pages 505–518)
Summary: The first part of this article reassessed the painted clock dials of the Thomas Pyke foundry of Bridgwater, Somerset. This second part discusses the little-known Cox foundry at Taunton, a town situated some eleven miles southwest of Bridgwater. In the period 1821–1840 it bought in blanks for finishing, and manufactured painted iron dials, nineteen examples of which are presented here.
No. 67 Fleet Street, after Thomas Tompion – and some nineteenth-century plans
by James Nye (pages 519-529)
Summary: In the absence of other information, one might expect Thomas Tompion’s final premises to be fronted by his own shop at street level. Yet we have long known he shared his building. Evans, Carter & Wright discussed furniture-maker Braem, saddler Tesmond, and haberdasher Clutterbuck as some examples of co-tenants, but no detailed consideration has previously been given to what the passer-by might have seen at the street-level frontage of 67 Fleet Street. Further, little attention has been focussed on how much space was available for new-making and servicing of clocks and watches when Tompion and Graham were residents. This article discusses some hitherto unremarked plans of the premises from the mid-nineteenth century, which probably offer our best clues as to the square footage and footprint of the property. In the main it explores the use of the building – certainly the shop-front – over the 120 years or so after Graham left, until it was finally demolished, and highlights the different uses to which the internal space may have been put, for retail and for bench work.
Mozart’s watches
by Peter de Clercq (pages 530-540)
Summary: From the abundant surviving correspondence of the Mozart family, we learn that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) owned five gold watches. The letters shed an interesting light on the way he acquired them, and on his own thoughts about them. We know very little of what became of them after his death; only two watches said to have belonged to him are known, and for both the provenance can be doubted. In one letter Mozart refers to the current fashion for men to wear two watches, and this is picked up as a side-theme in this article. (Read this article here)
Clocks at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
by Bob Frishman (pages 541-545)
‘Unfreezing Time #20’ by Patricia Fara (pages 546-547) (Read the whole series of articles here)
The issue totals 148 pages and is illustrated mainly in colour, and is completed by the regular sections Horological News, Book Reviews, Unfreezing Time, Notes from the Librarian, AHS News, Letters and Further Reading.