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Lot Essay
Richard Street was a noteworthy clockmaker, one that appears to have escaped scrutiny until very recently. He is noted in Jeremy Evans Thomas Tompion at the Dial and Three Crowns Antiquarian Horology, 2006, p. 114, as an outstanding maker whose origins have not been ascertained. Made Free in 1687, he is believed to have worked in Fleet Street, and there is clear evidence that he was responsible for some of Tompion's repeating watch movements.
That Richard Street was well connected is evidenced by his most famous commission the important Degree Clock wich is now at the Old Observatory at Greenwich. This may have been "The black clock on the back stairs" found described in Sir Isaac Newton's personal papers after his death. Sir Isaac had also commissioned from Street a fine and highly unusual clock as a gift for the Observatory at Trinity College Cambridge in 1708, it apparently had eccentric chapters and an expanding and contracting hand.
The present clock has a most handsome dial and fine quality movement of the first order, the case is typical of the best quality London work.
That Richard Street was well connected is evidenced by his most famous commission the important Degree Clock wich is now at the Old Observatory at Greenwich. This may have been "The black clock on the back stairs" found described in Sir Isaac Newton's personal papers after his death. Sir Isaac had also commissioned from Street a fine and highly unusual clock as a gift for the Observatory at Trinity College Cambridge in 1708, it apparently had eccentric chapters and an expanding and contracting hand.
The present clock has a most handsome dial and fine quality movement of the first order, the case is typical of the best quality London work.