Further Thoughts: Rentzsch and Berrollas

My article entitled, The Novel Technology of Sigismund Rentzsch, was published in the September 2017 issue of Clocks Magazine.  Rentzsch’s contemporary, Joseph Anthony Berrollas, was the subject of my article published in Volume 38, Number 2, (June 2017), of Antiquarian Horology, journal of the Antiquarian Horological Society.  I referred to these two distinctive watchmakers in the post here of 8 June 2017.

Both have been featured in enquiries I’ve subsequently received, confirming the especially interesting nature of their lives and work.

Regarding JAB, a horology enthusiast kindly sent me details of Berrollas timepieces he has owned, most particularly a drum alarm, #1500:

Having also owned a Berrollas carriage clock, my correspondent was able to reflect on the maker’s apparently peripatetic lifestyle between England and the Continent.  He comments: ‘His English work has French characteristics, and the French clocks have English details. On his English clocks I have only seen going barrels, not fusees. On the French clock escapements there are English details, like the recessed index, jewelling & hairspring stud, as on my carriage clock, (on the main spring of which is the date 1842).

He adds: ‘About 30 years ago I looked at a similar clock to #1500, in The Museum of the History of Science in Oxford.  The Museum’s example is signed, James McCabe, and the curator had no wish to be told that Berrollas had made it!’

I would like to think that my article on Rentzsch would have been a further contribution towards his profile, though this should have already been high enough to support the notion that examples of his work merit above-average valuation as they come to the market from time to time; certainly I would expect to Rentzsch to be considered ‘collectable.’  So I’m somewhat surprised that it has been possible to acquire a good-looking example in 2020 for less than £600.

Dating from 1807, the open face pocket watch featured in a Bonham’s sale last month:

Reverting to 2017, shortly before my Clocks Magazine article was published, this Rentzsch alarm came up for sale at Auktionen Dr. Crott, Frankfurt Airport:

Circa 1830, it was described in the catalogue:

An exquisite “Pendule de Bureau” with “Petite Sonnerie” and alarm.  Case: brass; Dial: silvered;  Movm.: circular brass full plate movement, heavy gold screw chronometer balance, 2 x chain/fusee, 3 hammers/1 bell.

A good deal of quality and plenty of horological interest/complication I’d suggest in return for the modest €1,500 winning bid.

Court and Trusted

A very distinctive item featured in the Bonhams Fine Clocks sale at Bond Street, London, 12 December 2018, selling for £2,000, including premium.

As Lot 96, Bonhams described it as: A very interesting early 19^th Century ‘Patent Time Repeater’; a device which allows any pocket watch to sound an alarm and repeat the hours and quarters.

It is certainly an intriguing concept and a fascinating-looking object:

Courtesy of Bonham’s

The instructions read:

On going to Bed  - For the alarum part, move the small index in the figured slide, to the time you wish to rise, and pull the button which is on the outside (of) the box to wind it up, then lay the Watch in its place.

Move the figured slide right or left, till the brass Index points to the same Hour and Quarter on the slide, as is shewn by the Watch: When you want to know the Time, turn the hand wheel to the left as far as it will go; loose it, and it will strike the Hour and Quarter required.

The maker was Isaac Court of Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire.  His dates are 1747-1805.  His father, of Solihull, with the same name, was also a clockmaker.

I have been able to find only one extant Isaac Court watch, #4428, a silver verge with London 1804 hallmarks, and case makers initials, T B, (possibly Thomas Bligh, Great Sutton Street, Clerkenwell.):

Courtesy of eBay

(The watch featured in the Bonhams catalogue photograph is not by Court – it is a late eighteenth century verge by Wildman, London, #3363.)

I was puzzled by the assertion that the device was patented, there being no sign of such a grant to Court in Charles Aked’s ‘Complete List of English Horological Patents up to 1853.’

However, by further reference to ‘The Repertory of Patent Inventions . . . Volume 7, 1797,’ I realised that the patent was Charles Trusted’s, of 24 November 1796.  Numbered, 2148, this was summarised:

Charles Trusted of Oversley, in the county of Warwick, Gentleman; for a machine called a time-repeater, to be applied to common watches, for the purpose of striking the hours and quarters.

As with Court, there’s little to be found in horological literature about Charles Trusted, though Hans Nygen, of Vallingby, Sweden, had a letter published in the September 1961 issue of Antiquarian Horology concerning his clock which featured the Trusted patent mechanism.  Mention was also made about Court’s watch application, including that an example of which was held at The Science Museum, London.*  Indeed, the current on-line catalogue of the Bonhams sale also alludes to this and includes a photograph of it on display.

Coming across the Bonhams lot, I was reminded of the George Sanderson calendar watch key about which I wrote here. I especially like these old horological excursions of invention away from the mainstream, seeming to me to be like precursors of the concept of the digital apps that proliferate today.

* This example remains on display within The Clockmakers' Museum Collection, on the second floor of The Science Museum.  It is in a case marked XX and has the museum reference number 645. (With thanks to Anna Rolls, Curator of The Clockmakers' Museum.)

William Rogers of Liverpool

A very elegant complicated pocket watch by William Rogers of Liverpool is currently on sale in London.

Courtesy of Sotheby’s 

It is an 18ct yellow gold open-faced quarter repeater with calendar.  The three quarter gilt plate lever movement is numbered 3807.  It features a diamond endstone. There are subsidiary dials for: seconds; day; date; month. The hallmarks are for Chester, 1862.  The case maker's mark is GR, (probably George Roberts of Liverpool).  Diameter is 55 mm. 

It has a very unusual feature in its repeater mechanism – the speed with which the gongs are struck is adjustable by the user by means of a lever on the top plate. 

The watch is of an ambitious specification given that Rogers would have been just eighteen or nineteen at the time of its manufacture. 

Extant examples of watches by Rogers are hard to find – I have identified only three so far.  As to clocks – just one.  But what a one!  Sold by Bonhams in 2008 for £16,800, a very impressive quarter chiming skeleton clock – see https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/16226/lot/72/

William Rogers was born in 1842 and died in 1898.  Born in Liverpool, he grew up in Manchester, returning to Merseyside as an adult.  He was married to Ellen for over thirty years.  They had seven children – of these two were daughters and both died in childhood.  None of the sons seems to have followed William into the watchmaking trade. 

The family lived in the West Derby/Kensington area of Liverpool - in 1871 they were in Emlyn Street and by 1881 had moved to Boaler Street, (see photograph below):

 

(For an excellent selection of photographs of old Liverpool, please see: http://www.liverpoolpicturebook.com - source of all location photographs in this post).

By 1891, they had moved again, this time to no. 29 Kensington; the photograph, below is of no. 27, (in 1955):

 

Rogers had business premises at 19 Castle Street, Liverpool.  Other nineteenth century watchmakers based in Castle Street/South Castle Street included: Joseph Sewill, Owen Owens, John Moncas, John R Cameron, Henry Daniel, Simpson Samuell, Moses Chapman, Lewis Woolf, Richard Hornby.

 

 

The other two Rogers watches I have found are: 

#11312 - 18ct gold open face lever, hallmarked London 1881.  Jewelled gilt three quarter plate movement with bi-metal split compensation balance.  Subsidiary seconds dial.  Case also numbered 11312 with maker's mark JM, (possibly Joseph Moore).  Diameter 50 mm.  Movement signed William Rogers, 19 Castle Street, Liverpool.  Sold for £1,140 inc. premium, May 2010. 

#21026 - 18 ct gold half hunter table roller lever, hallmarked Chester 1874.  Gilt three quarter plate keyless movement with going barrel.  Compensation balance with freesprung blue steel overcoil hairspring. English table roller lever escapement, screwed in jewelling, escape and lever pivots with endstones.  Plain case with maker’s mark RO, (possibly Richard Oliver).  Diameter 56 mm. 

If you have details or a photograph of a William Rogers watch do please post a comment.