{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O53202"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O53202/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2015HM2522/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2015HM2522/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2015HM2522","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2015HM2523","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2015HM2525","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PH2693","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PH2692","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PH2691","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PH2690","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2019MA6832","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O53202/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O53202","accessionNumber":"W.107:1 to 7-1962","objectType":"Clock and barometer case","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"John Ellicott (1706-1772) of 17 Sweeting's Alley, Cornhill, was a Fellow of the Royal Society and served on its Council. He was one of the most eminent English makers and he was responsible for many technical improvements. The cases of many of his clocks are of great elegance.\r\n\r\nThis example has a wheel barometer in the front of the case.","physicalDescription":"Case:\r\nWalnut veneer on oak carcass. Full-width rectangular trunk door with moulded borders enclosing herringbone banding, the upper part containing the circular silvered dial and steel hands of a wheel barometer. Inside trunk door, barometer mechanism is concealed by a mahogany board. Concave moulding below hood. Sliding hood with break-arch glazed front door cornice and frieze, the whole surmounted by a caddy top, flanked by pedestal-mounted finials. Hood sides with free-standing brass-capped columns to front, wooden-capped quarter columns to rear.  Rectangular break-arched glazed panels to hood sides. Rectangular base with moulding to front panel enclosing herringbone banding. Plain plinth.\r\n\r\nDial: \r\nBrass, break-arch total height 16½ inches, central portion 12 inches square. Centre matted. Winding squares concealed by matted brass shutters. Square, bevelled calendar aperture located below a silvered, oval plaque pinned to the dial plate, engraved<i> John Ellicott / London</i>. Mask head spandrels located at corners of dial plate each located by a single screw. Flanking a globe moon in a circular aperture in the break-arch are arch spandrels of dolphin design. A pair of steel brackets one above the other are screwed to back of dial to locate the short, vertical globe moon arbor. Pinned to the dial plate is the silvered brass chapter ring with engraved minute band and opposed arrow heads and Arabic minute numerals at five minute intervals and Roman hour numerals. Engraved floating fleur-de-lis half-hour markers. Pinned to the dial plate below \"XII\" is the subsidiary seconds ring of silvered brass, with engraved seconds band and Arabic numerals at five seconds intervals; its diameter is such that it almost fully occupies space between it and central hole for hands. A silvered brass ring with engraved Arabic numerals for the date (1-31) runs behind the dial on brass pulleys. Four dial feet attached to the movement front plate by pinning. \r\n\nHands:\r\nPierced steel hour and minute. Plain seconds hand.\r\n\r\nMovement:\r\nBrass and steel, weight driven hour striking of 8-day duration, with dead beat escapement, pendulum regulated. Five pillars each with a central knop, riveted to backplate, pinned to front. Hour striking on bell controlled by snail, rack with sprung tail and deep tooth-type locking. Brass train wheels with four semicircular crossings. Where visible, single scribed line present at teeth roots, including hour and 24-hour wheels, except escape wheel. Three-spoked crossings on cannon pinion and minute wheel, latter being colleted onto minute pinion arbor, the whole being located on front plate by a cock. Double profiled wheel collets with short cylindrical section adjacent to wheel, merging into short tapered section along arbor. Steel arbors with slight barrel shape. Short pinion heads. Bolt and shutter maintaining power, actuated by decoratively shaped lever on proper left of movement, drives centre wheel teeth. The pair of shutters, pinned to front of bolt arbor, move as one.  Steel dead beat pallets, with a short stalk connected to anchor-shaped frame, span 10½ teeth of escape wheel. Pallets attached to pallet arbor by brass collet. Escape wheel with slender teeth. Substantial backcock occupies half width of backplate. Little detailing on steelwork except striking side click; bell standard and separate hammer stop have some bevelling to edges. Globe moon drive is taken from 24-hour wheel which, in addition to working calendar, also meshes with separate gear wheel. This meshes with another gear carrying a flag. All these gears are mounted on movement front plate. Flag advances separate gear wheel located on back of dial at bottom of break-arch, having quasi-ratchet shaped teeth. Carried on this wheel, is a smaller gear wheel which meshes at right angles with a gear mounted on the vertical globe moon arbor. Thus moon is turned, thus indicating its phase in break-arch of dial. The trunk door barometer mechanism operates independently of clock movement. \r\n\r\nDescription and notes by Francis Brodie, c. 2008","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Ellicott, John","id":"A8366"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28674"},"note":"John Ellicott senior established business 1698 at Austin Friars and moved at an unknown date to 17 Swithins, or Sweetings Alley, next to the Royal Exchange; business remained at this address until premises destroyed by fire in 1838. Shortly after, c.1726 he took his son John into partnership aged 23. John junior had been apprenticed in the Clothworkers’ Company to Richard Ward, Free 1726. The business under John junior became one of the most successful clock and watch retailers of the eighteenth century (Goodison, N., English Barometers 1680-1860, Woodbridge, 1977). \r\n\r\nRoyal Clockmaker 1762-1776. John junior never seems to have been a member of the Clockmakers Company and details of his training are unknown. He was one of the expert committee formed in 1763 to assess Harrison’s fourth marine timekeeper (Jagger, C., Royal Clocks: The British Monarchy and its Timekeepers 1300-1900, London, 1983).\r\n\r\nIn addition to clock making, he evolved a pyrometer and presented a thesis to the Royal Society 1736. Through the Royal Society he became associated with the Scottish astronomer James Ferguson, Ferguson visiting John Ellicott on a number of occasions at Ellicott’s private house in Hackney, where an observatory was established. Ellicott gave a number of papers to the Royal Society including one on the influence of two pendulum clocks on each other, and his better known papers on two methods on the effects of heat and cold on the rod of a pendulum. Was made Fellow of the Royal Society 1738 and was on their Council for three years (Loomes, B., Grandfather Clocks and Their Cases, Devon, 1985). He had commissions for clocks in Spain and also made regulators for the 1761 Transit of Venus under the direction of the Royal Society (Vuliamy, D.G., The Vulliamy Clockmakers, 68 Pall Mall, Brockhampton, 1996). "}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"walnut","id":"AAT12476"},{"text":"oak","id":"AAT12264"},{"text":"brass","id":"AAT10946"}],"techniques":[{"text":"veneering","id":"AAT53878"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"","categories":[{"text":"Clocks & Watches","id":"THES48976"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"FWK","id":"THES48597"},"images":["2015HM2522","2015HM2523","2015HM2525","2025PH2693","2025PH2692","2025PH2691","2025PH2690","2019MA6832"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES303485"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES303485"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES303485"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES303485"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES303485"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"004","id":"THES303490"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES303485"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"tall case clocks","id":"AAT41586"}],[{"text":"hoods (furniture components)","id":"AAT40814"}],[{"text":"movements","id":"AAT203656"}],[{"text":"clock weights","id":"x40529"}],[{"text":"clock weights","id":"x40529"}],[{"text":"keys (hardware)","id":"AAT33579"}],[{"text":"doors","id":"AAT2803"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"London","id":"x28980"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1725-1750","earliest":"1725-01-01","latest":"1750-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Bequeathed by C. D. Rotch","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"253","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"58","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Depth","value":"30","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Weight","value":"5.7","unit":"kg","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"W.107:5 weight 10/10/2025 NH","note":""},{"dimension":"Weight","value":"3.95","unit":"kg","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"W.107:4 weight 10/10/2025 NH","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Bequeathed by Claude Rotch\r\n\r\n<b>Remarks</b>:\r\nThe break-arch to the hood was fully established after 1720-5, whilst free-standing hood columns were the predominant form on London clocks after 1730. The superstructure is of the caddy form, the pagoda top which although developed around 1730, did not become popular until the middle of the eighteenth century. Walnut was gradually supplanted by mahogany after c.1750. Regarding the dial, by about 1730 floating half-hour markers were common but tended to disappear by the end of this decade, along with the quarter hour band on London clocks. Both spandrel types (corner and arch) were introduced relatively early on in the eighteenth century but persisted, the mask head until c.1740, the dolphin style almost to the end of the century. The globe moon was fitted, albeit uncommonly on London clocks, between 1720-1750. A feature, perhaps more commonly associated with late seventeenth century clocks, was the presence of shutters over the winding squares, being a part of the maintaining power, although Ellicott did fit this type maintaining power quite late to his regulators. The design of hands seen here are not unlike those seen on other clocks by Ellicott.\r\n\nFor the movement, finned pillars generally fell into disuse by the mid-eighteenth century to be replaced by plain pillars with knops, although Joseph Williamson was using the latter type by around 1725 (Robey, J.A., The Longcase Clock Reference Book, Ashbourne, 2001). Double-profiled collets are more indicative of later eighteenth century practice, although earlier clocks having such collets are not unknown. The shape of the pallets with the short stalk connected to the anchor is associated with the so-called Graham dead beat, and could be early to mid-eighteenth century, although the escape wheel teeth in W.107-1962 are of not typical. The locking method of the rack striking used in this clock might be thought of as transitional in terms of date, although it may have persisted in Ellicott’s hands for the same reason as the maintaining power.\r\n\nIt may be possible that John Junior did not make his movements but rather bought them in. Records exist for Aynsworth and John Thwaites, father and son, who specialised in making clocks for various ‘makers’ including Matthew Dutton, Benjamin and Justin Vulliamy. Probably the most active of Thwaites customers were the Ellicotts, between August 1780 and August 1785, 183 clocks of assorted type were produced for them. The records are incomplete prior to 1780 but may be indicative of work carried out 1740-1780 (Bruton, E., The Weatherfield Collection of Clocks, London, 1981). \r\n\nA couple of features are of note: Ellicott was known to have sold barometers from his workshop (Smith, R., Vulliamy Clock Numbering: A Dated Series, Antiquarian Horology, Vol.19, No.6, Winter 1991, pp620-625) and the globe moon is an uncommon feature but not unknown on longcase clocks. This feature can be seen on clocks appreciably earlier than the Ellicott but it would be interesting to speculate whether Ellicott’s decision to use it was influenced by his interests, position and acquaintances. These, taken in conjunction with certain movement refinements, such as the dead beat escapement and maintaining power indicate that the clock was not only designed to be impressive to look at, but also essayed in the general direction of precision timekeeping. \r\n\nThe clock is certainly of high quality and would expect to have kept reasonable time, what with the maintaining power and dead beat escapement. The whole would have been a fine furnishing piece of superior quality and function.\r\n\nGoodison is of the opinion that sound frets would have been present both above and below the cornice (Smith, R., Vulliamy Clock Numbering: A Dated Series, Antiquarian Horology, Vol.19, No.6, Winter 1991, pp620-625); an astronomical clock by Ellicott with a calendar in the trunk also has such frets (Foulkes, R.K., Notes). \r\n\r\nDescription and notes by Francis Brodie, c. 2008\r\n","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"EIGHT DAY LONG CASE CLOCK\r\nWalnut veneer on oak carcase\r\nInscribed 'John Ellicott London', made in about 1725-1750","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"LONG-CASE CLOCK\r\nENGLISH; about 1740\r\nWalnut veneer on oak: the dial, which is surmounted by a rotating 'moon' is signed John Ellicott, London.  A barometer is set into the case.\r\n\r\nEllicott (1706-1772) was a Fellow of the Royal society and served on its Council.  One of the most eminent English makers, he was responsible for many technical improvements.  Moreover, the cases of many of this clocks are usually of great elegance.\r\n\r\nClaude Rotch Bequest.","date":{"text":"pre October 2000","earliest":null,"latest":"2000-09-30"}}],"partNumbers":["W.107:1-1962","W.107:2-1962","W.107:3-1962","W.107:4-1962","W.107:5-1962","W.107:6-1962","W.107:7-1962"],"accessionNumberNum":"107","accessionNumberPrefix":"W","accessionYear":1962,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE","Longcase clock","Clock hood","Clock movement","clock weight [1]","clock weight [2]","keys"],"assets":["2022ND6332","2022ND6333"],"recordModificationDate":"2026-08-12","recordCreationDate":"2001-01-26","availableToBook":true}}