.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
David Arthur Wetherfield (1845-1928) was a successful coal merchant who assembled one of the greatest collections of English clocks ever formed. Upon his death his house in Blackheath contained some 232 of the finest English clocks. Every room in the large house (except the bedroom) contained clocks - there were thirteen longcases in the dining room alone.
On Wetherfield's death the collection was placed in the hands of the auctioneer W.E. Hurcomb. In the first instance it was to be offered as a whole but if the reserve was not reached it was then to be presented in single lots. Dates for the auction were set but in the event the entire collection was purchased for £30,000 by a syndicate comprising Francis Mallett, Percy Webster and an American clock dealer called Arthur Vernay.
Ronald Lee writes of Joseph Knibb, 'Of all makers Joseph was by far the most daring when it came to methods of striking the hours and subdivisions of the hour' (Ronald A. Lee, The Knibb Family * Clockmakers, Manor House Press, 1964, p.112). Double-six hour striking was a method imported from the Continent. The first six hours are struck as normal. The clock then reverts to one blow at seven o'clock, through to six blows at twelve o'clock. This economical method uses only forty-two blows on the bell in a twelve hour period, as opposed to seventy-eight on a normal clock.
See also lots 70 and 90 and footnotes.
On Wetherfield's death the collection was placed in the hands of the auctioneer W.E. Hurcomb. In the first instance it was to be offered as a whole but if the reserve was not reached it was then to be presented in single lots. Dates for the auction were set but in the event the entire collection was purchased for £30,000 by a syndicate comprising Francis Mallett, Percy Webster and an American clock dealer called Arthur Vernay.
Ronald Lee writes of Joseph Knibb, 'Of all makers Joseph was by far the most daring when it came to methods of striking the hours and subdivisions of the hour' (Ronald A. Lee, The Knibb Family * Clockmakers, Manor House Press, 1964, p.112). Double-six hour striking was a method imported from the Continent. The first six hours are struck as normal. The clock then reverts to one blow at seven o'clock, through to six blows at twelve o'clock. This economical method uses only forty-two blows on the bell in a twelve hour period, as opposed to seventy-eight on a normal clock.
See also lots 70 and 90 and footnotes.