Three Follow-ups

I posted about Alexander Watkins and his very fine 1851 Pocket Chronometer in April 2016. As noted in my Clocks Magazine article about Watkins, this watch changed hands in a Sotheby's sale in 2004 for £51,000 - this has always seemed to me a meagre amount for such an attractive and historically-significant timepiece.  So I shall be very interested to see what it makes when it comes up again this summer.  This will be Jones & Horan's sale on Sunday 2nd June - for further details see here. In my experience this is an auction house which really knows its stuff, and their team has in the past been very friendly and helpful to me in my horological researches.

More recently, Isaac Court's 'Patent Time Repeater' featured here.  Rich Newman kindly got in touch from Chicago to let me know about other applications of this fascinating invention - covered in his article:

I've done it again!  Back in November 2015 I was bemoaning missing out on an Alexander Hare pocket watch.  Even more regrettable this time, in the recent sale at Canterbury Auction Galleries.  This was a good example of how much value can be obtained in terms of character and complication if precious metal case material is not so important to a collector:

Courtesy of Canterbury Auction Galleries

To my eye this is a very attractive verge (#386), and not expensive at a hammer price of  £1,900; ah well.

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.)

The Richard Websters – Persistence Pays Off

Four generations of watchmakers carried the Christian name and the business: 

1        Richard I c1760 (Britten’s 1779 (became free))-1807

2        Richard II c1785 (Britten’s 1800) - 1849

3        Richard III c1820 (Britten’s 1834-82) - 1882

4        Richard Godfrey c1840 - 1904 (end of succession)

5        Webster Co/R Webster Ltd to 1914 

There were ups and downs, from multiple bankruptcies to award-winning in the Royal Observatory trials: persistence certainly paid off for ‘Richard Webster’. 

Richard I

Son of the eminent watchmaker, William Webster, who became Master of the Clockmakers Company in 1755.  Richard I was admitted to the Company in 1779.  His premises were at 26 Exchange Alley.  The business failed, partly because of gambling debts, in 1802. 

Richard II

Son of Richard I.  Took over the business in 1802. He retained the premises at 26 Exchange Alley until 1813, then at 43 Cornhill until 1836.  At 3 Birchin Lane 1840-43, and 74 Cornhill from 1839.  Maker to the Admiralty and noted for chronometers of excellence which won prizes in the 1830s in the Royal Observatory trials.

 

 Watch paper (pre-1836)

(© Trustees of the British Museum)

 

Webster suffered bankruptcies in October 1829, November 1836 and February 1849.  Below is one of several relevant notices which appeared in The London Gazette, (18 May 1886): 

This is to give notice, that the Court acting in the prosecution of a Fiat in Bankruptcy, awarded and issued forth on the 20^th day of February, 1849, against Richard Webster and Richard Webster the younger, of No. 74, Cornhill, in the city of London, Chronometer Makers and Watch and Clock Manufacturers, will sit on the 24^th day of June, 1886, at eleven o’clock in the forenoon precisely, at Bankruptcy-buildings, 84, Lincoln’s –inn-fields, in the county of Middlesex, in order to make a Dividend of the joint estate and effects of the said Bankrupts, when and where the creditors who have not already proved their debts are to come prepared to prove the same, or they will be excluded the benefit of the said Dividend; and all claims not then proved will be disallowed. 

(That is one sentence, and ‘Bankruptcy-buildings' is surely from the pen of Spike Milligan!).

In February 2016 I discovered that Richard (II) was in partnership with William Hunter prior to the 1836 bankruptcy.  A notice in The Times, 26 May 1837, advised that business would continue at the 43 Cornhill premises under the name W. H. Hunter & Co.

An example of his work is included in the collection of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers:

 

#404 Richard Webster, England, c1820.  Movement only.  Enamel dial signed ‘Webster 3384.’  Subsidiary seconds dial.  Gold spade hands.  Bi-metallic compensation curb.  Plain brass balance.  Signed ‘R^d Webster. Change Alley London no 3384’.  This must be the Richard Webster who took over from his father, Richard, in 1802, at the age of 17.  See Antiquarian Horology, September 1955, p109.  Diameter 46mm.  Presented by A. & J. Smith, Dublin, 1934 

As described by Bonhams, this is also by Richard II:

 

Courtesy of Bonhams

An early 19th century 18ct gold quarter repeating open face pocket watch

London hallmark for 1808.  Gilt full plate cylinder movement with flat gilt 3-arm balance and diamond end stone, round pillars, two polished hammers striking on a bell held in the back of the case, enamel dial with black Roman numerals and outer five minute divisions, gilt spade hands, subsidiary seconds at 6, pierced and engraved inner case sides, held within polished round hinged outer, push repeat via the stem, strike-silent button in the band, dial signed and numbered 3369, movement signed and numbered 3370.  55mm.

 

One of his chronometers as described below by Christies is shown at:

http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/a-mid-victorian-mahogany-eight-day-richard-webster-2090687-details.aspx?intObjectID=2090687  

No. 458. Circa 1850.  The silvered dial signed Richard Webster, Cornhill, No. 458, Roman hour numerals, outer minute chapter with Arabic five-minute intermarkers 60-5-10 etc, subsidiary seconds and up-and-down dials, blued steel hands, Earnshaw escapement, main frame assembly carrying remainder of the train and escapement, cut bimetallic balance with segmental heat compensation weights, blued steel helical balance spring, spring foot detent with jewelled locking stone, brass bowl and gimbal (possibly later), three-tier plain mahogany box, the middle section inset with bone disc (unsigned), external brass drop handles.  105mm. dial diam., box 178mm.sq.

Richard III

Son of Richard II.  Finished his apprenticeship to his father in 1844.  He ran an additional business in Paris.  He occupied premises at the newly-developed 5 Queen Victoria Street from 1872.  In the 1881 Census he is recorded as at 57 Marquess Road, Islington, widowed and living with his three daughters and two sons, (and two servants).  He died in 1882.  Here, below, is a mid-nineteenth century Webster advertisement typical of the kind he took in The Times: 

WEBSTER – WATCHES, Chronometers, and Clocks, by R. WEBSTER, chronometer maker to the Lords of the Admiralty, the East India Company, &c., at as low a price as is consistent with maintaining that character for superiority of workmanship which has distinguished his house for a century and a half.  The prizes given by Government for the best performing chronometers were awarded to R. Webster three years in succession.  Established A.D. 1711 – 74, Cornhill.

Richard Godfrey Webster

Son of Richard III.  He is recorded as a chronometer maker at 5 Queen Victoria Street from 1876.  It seems likely that he allowed non-commercial interests to distract his attention from the business itself.  For example, he was a notably active Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.  Also, he frequently contributed writings under the name ‘Cornhill’ to the journal of the British Horological Institute.  In an attempt to save the ailing company, his wife took over in 1904, ending the long father>son succession.  The business continued until 1914, trading as Webster Co/R. Webster Ltd.