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Lot Essay
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
Tom Robinson, The Longcase Clock, Woodbridge, 1981, p.168
John Holmes (b.circa 1728-d.1797?) is believed to have been apprenticed circa 1743-1750 to Henry Hindley of York. He is then recorded working at Hard Court, Holborn in 1754 before setting up alone at 156 Strand, by Somerset House. A maker of great repute, he supervised the making of the turret clock for Greenwich Hospital by Thwaites. In 1791 he was one of the experts on the Select Committee of the House of Commons which reported on Thomas Mudge's marine chronometers.
A report to the Royal Society in 1771 (see Robinson, op. cit.) cited the performance of a clock by John Holmes with a wooden pendulum rod. Over the course of a year the daily rate varied from a maximum gain of 2.4 seconds to a maximum loss of 1.9 seconds. At the end of the year the rate was within half a second of what it had been at the beginning.
Tom Robinson, The Longcase Clock, Woodbridge, 1981, p.168
John Holmes (b.circa 1728-d.1797?) is believed to have been apprenticed circa 1743-1750 to Henry Hindley of York. He is then recorded working at Hard Court, Holborn in 1754 before setting up alone at 156 Strand, by Somerset House. A maker of great repute, he supervised the making of the turret clock for Greenwich Hospital by Thwaites. In 1791 he was one of the experts on the Select Committee of the House of Commons which reported on Thomas Mudge's marine chronometers.
A report to the Royal Society in 1771 (see Robinson, op. cit.) cited the performance of a clock by John Holmes with a wooden pendulum rod. Over the course of a year the daily rate varied from a maximum gain of 2.4 seconds to a maximum loss of 1.9 seconds. At the end of the year the rate was within half a second of what it had been at the beginning.