Lot Essay
The present chronometer was one of nearly thirty such models that were commissioned by Thomas Mudge Junior. It was Mudge Senior, 1715-1794, who made the famous 'Blue' and 'Green' timekeepers that formed such an integral part in the early development of the marine chronometer and for which the Board of Longitude awarded £3,000.
His son, a lawyer by profession, decided to commission William Howells and Robert Pennington to produce marine chronometers in the style of his father's foremost chronometers.
The first did not perform at all well and it was chronometers No. 2 & 3 that first went to sea. They were taken on a voyage to the West Indies under Captain Durban and were rated against two other chronometers by Arnold and Haley.
Owing to their expense and unreliability the project was doomed by 1798 after only less than thirty had been produced. Few have survived and only three of them retain their original escapements, probably because the Mudge escapement was a highly complicated device and when the others became temperamental it would have been easier and considerably cheaper replace them. The present example with its Pennington balance may well have been converted by Pennington himself and then converted into its present case
His son, a lawyer by profession, decided to commission William Howells and Robert Pennington to produce marine chronometers in the style of his father's foremost chronometers.
The first did not perform at all well and it was chronometers No. 2 & 3 that first went to sea. They were taken on a voyage to the West Indies under Captain Durban and were rated against two other chronometers by Arnold and Haley.
Owing to their expense and unreliability the project was doomed by 1798 after only less than thirty had been produced. Few have survived and only three of them retain their original escapements, probably because the Mudge escapement was a highly complicated device and when the others became temperamental it would have been easier and considerably cheaper replace them. The present example with its Pennington balance may well have been converted by Pennington himself and then converted into its present case