A Mid-Victorian rosewood Two-Day Marine Chronometer with Un-Recorded Form of Compensated Balance

CLERKE NO. 787; CIRCA 1865

Details

A Mid-Victorian rosewood Two-Day Marine Chronometer with Un-Recorded Form of Compensated Balance
Clerke No. 787; circa 1865
The silvered dial signed Clerke, 168 Fenchurch St. London No. 787, Roman hour numerals, gold hour hand (lacking minute hand), subsidiary seconds and up-and-down dials with blued steel hands, dial-plate, frame and bowl all numbered 5171, Earnshaw escapement, form of double rim cut-bimetallic balance with the inner bimetallic auxiliary rim secured to the outer rim by peripheral screws, four segmental heat compensation weights, blued steel helical balance spring, dovetail spring detent with jewelled locking stone to side of banking block, brass bowl and gimbal, brass-bound three-tier rosewood box, bone disc (unsigned) to front of bottom section, the middle section with inset bone plaque inscribed Clerke,168 Fenchurch St. London 787, external brass drop handles
100 mm. dial diam. 175 mm. square box

Lot Essay

In the 1891 Annual Chronometer Trial at Greenwich, a Clerke (no initials) giving his address as 1 Royal Exchange, E.C. entered a chronometer No. 1719 fitted with an "ordinary balance", in the ensuing years up to 1898 he entered Nos. 1725, 1726, 1728, 1731, 1733 and 1735 all from the same address and all described as being fitted with "ordinary balances". In the 1898-1899 Trial a Clerke still giving his address as 1 Royal Exchange, E.C. entered No. 1738 described as having "auxiliary to balance:palladium spring". This is the last trial in which this particular Clerke entered chronometers.
Britten's Old Clocks and Watches and their Makers, 9th edition, 1986, lists an F.W. Clerke, Watchmaker at 168 Fenchurch Street 1864-1871.
Tony Mercer, Chronometer Makers of the World, N.A.G. Press Ltd, 1991, pp. 120 and 121, quotes Frederick William Clerke & Son at 168 Fenchurch Street. He was born in 1820 and died in 1885.

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