long-case clock;
thirty-hour clock;
weight-driven clock;
alarm clock
- Museum number
- 2010,8029.48
- Description
-
Thirty-hour Longcase Clock with Alarm
Case:
Stained-oak case with forward-sliding flat-topped hood with a plain frieze. Three-quarter turned columns attached to the sides of the hood door and quarter columns to the rear. The columns have gilded bases and capitals. The hood door has a hood and pin lock fitted on the left hand side. The plain trunk has a hinged rectangular door with an inset brass keyhole with no escutcheon. The plain tall base stands on a shaped plinth.
Dial:
Solid brass dial plate silvered all over and engraved with foliate cartouche spandrel ornaments. Engraved chapter-ring with an outer circle divided to minutes and numbered 0-60 at five-minute intervals, surrounding Roman hours I-XII. The dial is engraved with the maker's name and place above the centre. Above VI is a subsidiary dial calibrated 0-31 and numbered 3,6,,9,12 etc - 31 for the date. At the centre a silvered brass alarm-setting disc numbered 1-12. The dial is attached to the movement by screws from the front and the subsidiary date dial is attached by screws from the rear. Blued-steel hour, minute and date hands.
Movement:
30-hour, weight-driven movement with a brass posted frame, the pillars aligned with the top and bottom plates. The going and striking trains arranged front to back, with the striking train at the rear. Brass sprokets and shrouds for Huygens endless rope maintaining power. Three wheel going train, the wheels with four crossings. Anchor escapement, the brass escape wheel with four crossings. Pendulum control, the modern pendulum with steel rod and brass-fronted lead bob.
Striking train for hours with a three wheel train, the wheels with four crossings, terminating with a fly pinion with a brass-vane. Striking controlled by a brass count-wheel mounted on the outside of the rear bearing plate and retained by a triangular brass tension spring.
Weight-driven alarm consisting of a crown wheel with a sprocket for rope drive mounted on a separate plate on the left side of the movement. Attached to a verge is a single hammer which strikes the inside of the bell as ist oscillated between two long upright banking pins.
The bell is supported by a bell standard screwed on the upper movement plate.
The motion work consists of a brass canon wheel mounted on the second (centre) wheel which drives a minute wheel and pinion, the pinion then drives a central hour wheel. The canon wheel carries the minute hand and the hour carries the hour hand. A pinion on the hour wheel pipe drives an intermediate wheel on which is a pin which indexes the date wheel.
The drive rope passes around a solid brass pulley and througfh a lead 'doughnut' counter-weight.
- Production date
- 1780 - 1790
- Dimensions
-
Height: 194 centimetres (case)
-
Width: 47 centimetres (case)
-
Depth: 27 centimetres (case)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- A clock with a very similar movement is llustrated in Darken & Hooper, English Thirty-Hour Longcase Clocks, Penita Books, Woking, 1997, pp.228-230. The regulator style dial, signed 'Jams Newman, Lewes', has screwed-on sunk subsidiaries and the movement shows many characteristics which provide compelling evidence that the movement and dial have a common origin to that of the Hooker clock.
The alarm hammer is not orginal.
The hands are possibly replacement - there is no provision for setting the alarm disc - usually by using a pointed tail of the hour hand as an index.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 2010
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 2010,8029.48