BERNARD RUDKIN HENNESSY, SWANSEA, THE MOVEMENT ATTRIBUTED TO SMITH'S OF CLERKENWELL. CIRCA 1865

Details

A Victorian mahogany eight day longcase regulator
Bernard Rudkin Hennessy, Swansea, the movement attributed to Smith's of Clerkenwell. Circa 1865
The hood with stepped and moulded flat top and chamfered front angles, the trunk with conforming throat mouldings and angles and with glazed panel, on stepped plinth with quatreform moulded panel and on moulded feet, the silvered and skeletonised regulator dial signed on the minute ring Hennessy Swansea, with subsidiary seconds and hour rings, blued steel hands, the movement housed within a brass drum case with the dial screwed to four substantial pillars and the high count train with six crossings and pivoted on to brass brackets with massive screws on the back plate, the barrel also skeletonised and with six crossings, with Vulliamy-type dead beat escapement with jewelled pallets, maintaining power with curved steel arm, the steel rod and decagonal glass mercury jar pendulum (mercury removed) suspended from the rear of the movement case, with densely engraved brass work and blued steel pointer, silvered calibration nut, swinging against a silvered beat scale on the back plate; brass pulley with six crossings, brass weight, crank key
77 in. (196 cm.) high

Provenance

Christie's London, Important Clocks and Marine Chronometers, 5 July 2002, lot 45.

Literature

Illustrated, Derek Roberts, English Precision Pendulum Clocks, Schiffer, 2003, pp.236-237, figs.22a,b,c.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

Roberts (op.cit., p.237) attributes the movement of this clock to the famous skeleton clock manufacturers, Smith's of Clerkenwell, on the basis of comparison with an identical skeletonised regulator movement signed by them.
Bernard Rudkin Hennessy was the son of an Irishman who opened a small academy in Swansea in 1840. He was apprenticed to a John Jenkins and opened his own business in Wind Street, Swansea, in 1848. He continued trading until his retirement in 1875.

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