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A rare mid 18th century ebonised table clock Hindley, York image 1
A rare mid 18th century ebonised table clock Hindley, York image 2
A rare mid 18th century ebonised table clock Hindley, York image 3
A rare mid 18th century ebonised table clock Hindley, York image 4
A rare mid 18th century ebonised table clock Hindley, York image 5
A rare mid 18th century ebonised table clock Hindley, York image 6
A rare mid 18th century ebonised table clock Hindley, York image 7
Lot 21

A rare mid 18th century ebonised table clock
Hindley, York

Fine Clocks
16 December 2015, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £18,750 inc. premium

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A rare mid 18th century ebonised table clock

Hindley, York
the case with ball finial over a caddy and plinth with silk-backed pierced sound fret on an arch with elaborate moulded cornice, to a plinth base on ball feet, each side set with a rectangular glass panel and a substantial turned brass handle, the eight inch arched brass dial with silvered Roman and Arabic chapter ring to the upper half, with blued steel hands and subsidiary seconds dial to the matted centre, the lower portion of the dial mounted with pierced scroll spandrels and a signed subsidiary dial with silent/strike option enclosing a matted centre, the large arched movement plates united by six typical 'double baluster' type pillars and a shaped steel retaining pillar at the base, the rear cast with an aperture to allow examination of the 'scape wheel, the chain fusees reversed and driving wheels of six crossings, the going train with bolt and shutter maintaining power to a deadbeat-type escapement with intricate pallet assembly to a long curved steel crutch, the pendulum suspended from a cast brass bracket mounted on the backplate via a t-bar suspension, with shaped steel rod terminating in a stirrup with fine screw adjustment to the lenticular bob, the strike train with rack strike and shaped steelwork mounted on the backplate sounding the hours on a large bell 52cms (20ins) high

Footnotes

Literature:
This clock is illustrated and discussed by Rodney Law in Antiquarian Horology, September 1971, p.698, Figs 28 and 29. Law describes it as follows "Figs 28 and 29 show an hour striking clock with recoil escapement probably made in the 1760s. The pallets are remarkable. The pallet arbor is cranked over the scape wheel and on each side of the crank carries a brass cross bar. Bridging the end of the crossbars and fixed to them by screws are steel bars parallel to the pallet arbor and forming the pallets. The striking motion is Hindley's final form with a horizontal rack and the snail mounted on a star wheel at 2 o'clock. The object of this arrangement seems to have been to enable the rack to fall by gravity, in fact there are no springs in the striking motion except the hammer spring. An identical motion was used in longcase clocks. Most of the parts of the motion work are pivoted between the front plate and a skeleton plate carried by four pillars. This refinement is also found on two very elaborate and highly finished spring clocks in gilt metal cases, which have flirt release for the striking so that at no time will they fail to repeat."

The York Courant of 26th March 1771 carried the following announcement on Hindley's death.

"On the Death of the late celebrated Mr HENRY HINDLEY
If to be skille'd in Newton's learned Page,
And in the Depths of Science to engage;
If Fancy sporting with mechanic Powers,
And Diligence that wak'd the Midnight Hours;
If Genius, emulous of Fame, should soar
To Excellence in Art unknown before:
If Efforts, such as these, excite Surprize,
They Name, Great Hindley, shall superior rise;
Thy curious Models shall our Youths inspire,
And Ages yet unborn they Works admire"

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