John Robey draft articles
The following resources have been kindly provided by the AHS's regular contributor, the horological researcher and publisher John Robey. There is a great deal of useful new information in these drafts, but John has explained that he is now unlikely to take this research further and hopes that by making them freely available they may be of use to others. He only asks that, where material is used in published research, his articles are credited with having provided that information.
The Mayor family of clock-brass founders
As part of his research for the second of a two-part article on Moorfields clock-brass founders ('The Mayor Family and Other Founders', Antiquarian Horology, September 2012), Robey researched the later descendants of founder John Mayor. This 58-page document provides details of eight generations of Mayor family from the 17th to the 20th centuries.
Download the draft article here.
Blank dial makers
The basis of an important article describing the production of blank dials as part of the English painted dial industry from the 1770s onwards. Seven pages of valuable information on the subject.
Download the draft article here.
Birmingham dialmakers, part III
Following Robey’s article in Antiquarian Horology in June 2018 ('New Light on Osborne and Wilson'), this six-page article contains more important information relating to early painted dial manufacturers, particularly Osborne and Wilson, and is essential reading when studying these early manufacturers of the 1770s.
Download the draft article here.
Birmingham dialmakers, part IV: some other 19th-century dialmakers
Complementing Part III above, this 13-page article provides much new information on other Birmingham dial makers of the 19th century.
Download the draft article here.
Birmingham dialmakers, part V: factors who sold clock dials
This final five-page part of the painted dial research reveals details of the factors of painted dials: those whose name may appear on the false plates but who were basically dealers as opposed to manufacturers of painted dials, an important distinction and vital to understand when researching this subject.
Download the draft article here.