The king took a personal interest in science and art, granting a royal charter to the Royal Society, a college for the promotion of "Phisico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning" in 1663, and declaring himself as founder. King Charles II and his court ordered clocks of the latest style for their new palaces and estates. The weight driven house clock was still made, but the table or bracket clock and longcase clock were seen for the first time. New forms of clocks incorporating the pendulum were made. With the death of Cromwell and restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the golden age of English clockmaking was in motion. This increased the accuracy of the weight-driven clock. In 1656 Christian Huygens van Zulichem (1639–1684), the Dutch astronomer and mathematician, successfully applied the pendulum to regulate a clock. It was during this time that the greatest names in English clockmaking were in their apprenticeships. A new class of wealthy men emerged having profited from the war and they built or rebuilt estates and furnished them with the latest styles, including clocks. In 1647 peace was established and there was a return to stability under Cromwell's Commonwealth. The 1630s were a productive time for the company and the clock trade was beginning to flourish.Ī setback for the Clockmakers' Guild came with the English Civil War in 1642, which disrupted the entire fabric of English society for half a decade. In return for rigorous protection by the company from outside competition, the members had to submit to strict regulations concerning how they treated their customers, fellow makers, and apprentices, and the standards their work was held to. Therefore, the Clockmakers’ Company was founded 1 as a trade guild to control the training, production, and quality of the clocks and watches made in the City of London, and in 1631 King Charles I granted the guild a royal charter. The established clockmakers felt threatened and saw the need for a central controlling body to prevent potentially inferior, less expensive products from damaging their livelihoods. Courtesy of Worshipful Company of Clockmakers.Īs the demand for clocks and watches grew, more and more outsider and foreign clockmakers came to London to join in the success. The Clockmakers' Museum is housed in the 1970s Guildhall Library (left). Two main groups of workers emerged: watchmakers, who also made spring-driven table clocks and clockmakers, who made the weight-driven wall clocks known then as "house clocks," now called "lantern clocks."įig. Over the first quarter of the seventeenth century, the clock trade strengthened and new English-born clockmakers and support workers such as founders and engravers became established. To practice their craft, they were required to join one of the trade guilds, such as the Blacksmiths', Stationers', or Drapers' Company no Clockmakers' Company yet existed. In the late sixteenth century, a small number of foreign-trained clockmakers worked in London. The origins of the company and why, how, and what was collected are here relayed. The collection has recently been entirely re-displayed in the Clockmakers' Museum at the Guildhall Library in London's East End, where it has been housed since 1976. The oldest clock and watch collection in the world devoted solely to timekeepers belongs to the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers of the City of London.
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