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Lot 91TP
A Fascinating and Unique 19th Century Mahogany Floor Standing Eight-Day Regulator Recorded by Dr Vaudrey Mercer to be the Arnold Workshop Regulator
13 July 2023, 14:00 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £8,960 inc. premium
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A Fascinating and Unique 19th Century Mahogany Floor Standing Eight-Day Regulator
Recorded by Dr Vaudrey Mercer to be the Arnold Workshop Regulator
The hood with flat top and ogee moulded cornice over plain sides and square glazed front door lined in a quarter-moulding, the throat with narrow moulding over two trunk doors: the upper being 29.5 inches long with central lock and moulded edge, the lower 16.5inches long with a lock, to a plain apron at the base. The sides of the case plain except for a pair of 5 inch panels let into the sides set at 37.5inches from the pendulum suspension point (presumably evidence of an alternative pendulum being in use at some stage). A small handwritten paper label bearing a fractional number (365/189?) is applied to the interior left-hand side. The 22cms (8.75inch) square silvered brass dial with twin subsidiaries set one above the other; the upper marked in Arabic five-second intervals with inner Observatory marks at the fives, with single blued steel counter-balanced hand. The lower dial with identical markings and now set with a pair of blued steel hands to give hours and minutes. Signed across the centre of the dial Arnold, 84 Strand, LONDON. The weight driven movement with arched plates measuring 22cms x 13cms (8.75ins x 5.25ins) united by five knopped pillars pinned through the backplate (the movement originally had six pillars, although this last was removed in order to make way for a new great wheel), the lower two pillars threaded to accept securing bolts from the underside. Now winding through the front on to a barrel, with Harrison's maintaining power. The great-, centre- and third-wheels all of six crossings, the deadbeat 'scape wheel of four crossings, to a pair of jewelled pallets spanning eleven teeth, the high count pinions unusually made of brass. The long steel crutch with brass fork to an invar pendulum rod terminating in a pair of steel cylinders joined top and bottom and held by a long threaded screw to allow for fine adjustment. The pendulum is suspended from a substantial right angled brass frame secured to a solid mahogany block mounted on the backboard via seven screws, its lower right-angled arms drilled to accept the securing bolts which locate into the two lower movement pillars. With pendulum and small brass weight.
The hood with flat top and ogee moulded cornice over plain sides and square glazed front door lined in a quarter-moulding, the throat with narrow moulding over two trunk doors: the upper being 29.5 inches long with central lock and moulded edge, the lower 16.5inches long with a lock, to a plain apron at the base. The sides of the case plain except for a pair of 5 inch panels let into the sides set at 37.5inches from the pendulum suspension point (presumably evidence of an alternative pendulum being in use at some stage). A small handwritten paper label bearing a fractional number (365/189?) is applied to the interior left-hand side. The 22cms (8.75inch) square silvered brass dial with twin subsidiaries set one above the other; the upper marked in Arabic five-second intervals with inner Observatory marks at the fives, with single blued steel counter-balanced hand. The lower dial with identical markings and now set with a pair of blued steel hands to give hours and minutes. Signed across the centre of the dial Arnold, 84 Strand, LONDON. The weight driven movement with arched plates measuring 22cms x 13cms (8.75ins x 5.25ins) united by five knopped pillars pinned through the backplate (the movement originally had six pillars, although this last was removed in order to make way for a new great wheel), the lower two pillars threaded to accept securing bolts from the underside. Now winding through the front on to a barrel, with Harrison's maintaining power. The great-, centre- and third-wheels all of six crossings, the deadbeat 'scape wheel of four crossings, to a pair of jewelled pallets spanning eleven teeth, the high count pinions unusually made of brass. The long steel crutch with brass fork to an invar pendulum rod terminating in a pair of steel cylinders joined top and bottom and held by a long threaded screw to allow for fine adjustment. The pendulum is suspended from a substantial right angled brass frame secured to a solid mahogany block mounted on the backboard via seven screws, its lower right-angled arms drilled to accept the securing bolts which locate into the two lower movement pillars. With pendulum and small brass weight.
Footnotes
Provenance: The private collection of Dr Vaudrey Mercer, and thence by descent. Dr Mercer was confident enough to record this in his exhaustive work, John Arnold & Son, Chronometer Makers 1762-1843 (published in 1972, and updated with a supplement in 1975) as "The Workshop Regulator". Five pages and four plates are dedicated to it in Chapter XI, which also includes the seven other known Arnold regulators at that time: John Arnold No.1; Arnold No.2; the Manheim regulator; Arnold No.101; two at Dunskirk Observatory (only one of which is complete); and the Shuckburgh regulator. He suggests that the current pendulum may have been added by Dent, or "more likely by Frodsham when the business was taken over by them." Having discussed different aspects of the clock, Mercer delivers the following verdict: "..I think this clock started life as a thirty hour clock with only minutes and seconds hands, and that it was used purely and simply as a regulator in the true sense of the word and almost certainly by John Arnold himself. The dial and eight day mechanism being an improvement on John Roger's part, to save the bother of daily winding, and then perhaps later still the hour hand was added, but still retaining the old dial without any hour numerals." It is very interesting to note that while the use of two doors on the case trunk is very rare, it is not unheard of – a similar example exists in the collection of the Royal Museums Greenwich, reference number ZAA0534.
Literature: Mercer, T. (1972) John Arnold & Son, Chronometer Makers 1762-1843, The Antiquarian Horological Society, p121-123, Plates 144 – 147.
Staeger, H. (1997) 100 Years of Precision Timekeepers from John Arnold to Arnold & Frodhsam 1763 – 1862 Gerlingen: Karl Dieringer. p715.
FOR FURTHER DETAILS, INCLUDING A TRAIN COUNT AND FAMILY REMEMBRANCES OF DR MERCER, PLEASE SEE THE APPENDIX