AGM followed by ‘Sir John Bennet – His Impact on Horology’
David Rooney
John Bennett (1814–1897) was a retail clockmaker, watchmaker and jeweller based in Cheapside, London, from 1846 onwards. He has been remembered for his views on the British horological industry and his use of modern advertising, marketing and publicity methods. Bennett retired in 1889 but the company he founded continued to trade in several London locations until 1963. This talk explores the public face of what became known as the ‘House of Bennett’, offering a case study in the history of horological retail that might prompt a wider examination of the subject.
David Rooney is a writer and curator. He was formerly Curator of Timekeeping at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and Keeper of Technology and Engineering at the Science Museum.
Doors open at 19:30, Starting 20.00 hours.
The meeting will be held at The White Hart Barn in Godstone.
Jonathan Clasper, a recently retired Army Orthopaedic Surgeon, who specialised in Trauma and the upper limbs, working recently with the NHS at Frimley Park Hospital.
“I have always had an interest in watches, and from a young age saw a Rolex watch as the ultimate must have”. Outside of medicine I enjoy history, and so the history of wristwatches, particularly their association with the military has always fascinated me. Unlike most collectors who seem to desire the rare steel Rolexes of the 50’s and 60’s my interest has always been early silver trench watches, especially as they cost a fraction of the price of a Paul Newman Daytona!
My talk will consider the early years of Rolex, mostly pre-1920. It is a time that isn’t well understood but can be inferred by looking at the watches themselves. In particular I will show that many opinions that are published can’t really be supported by the evidence. In particular:
It’s difficult to actually define what an early Rolex wristwatch is.
Rolex were not the first wristwatch enthusiasts.
Rolex weren’t the most successful wristwatch retailer pre-WW1.
Rolex benefitted from a change in the import law in 1907, and the demand during WW1.
Rolex did sell their own pocket watches.
A Rolex watch wasn’t the premium product.
Rolex together with Aegler, were innovating right from the earliest days.
In addition, I will propose a way of dating the early Rolex watches, which allows their development to be followed.
Doors open at 19:30, Starting 20.00 hours.
The meeting will be held at The White Hart Barn in Godstone.
‘Old Myths, new insights – The Regulators of William Hardy’
Graham Dolan
Graham Dolan is Curator Emeritus at the Royal Museums Greenwich and was previously Senior Education officer at the Museum’s Royal Observatory site. He is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
In 1807, the chronometer maker William Hardy persuaded the Board of Longitude to run a trial, at the Royal Observatory, of a regulator escapement that he had recently invented and fitted to an existing clock, by another maker. Its performance was such. that the Astronomer Royal ordered a bespoke clock from Hardy for use with the new Mural Circle that was being made for the Observatory by Edward Troughton.
When the clock arrived at the Observatory in 1811, there was a mighty row over the size of Hardy’s bill. Further controversy followed in 1830, when, after a period of indifferent performance, Edward Dent was permitted to change Hardy’s escapement for a dead-beat one of his own. Things were further compounded by the fact that Dent also decided to add his name to the dial.
Hardy’s clock is one of the most important that the Observatory ever owned. It served as a transit clock from the time of its arrival until it was retired from active service in 1954. During the period 1823 to 1871 it was also the de facto sidereal standard – the clock by which all the Observatory’s other clocks were set. During its life, it has undergone numerous and significant alterations. It can be seen today in the same position that it has occupied since the end of 1850.
In total, Hardy made at least 18 regulators, and possibly as many as 23 or more. Amongst those who originally owned them were wealthy individuals rich enough to have an observatory of their own. Others were supplied for government and privately funded institutions, including two clocks for the American Coastal Survey and three to the Russian Government. A recent survey of 12 of Hardy’s surviving clocks has shown that only two of them may once have been identical. The talk will end with a review of these 12, with some of the differences between them will being highlighted.
Doors open at 19:30, Starting 20.00 hours.
The meeting will be held at The White Hart Barn in Godstone.
‘A Revolutionary Breguet Clock (and more Breguet at the British Museum)’
Oliver Cook
For this year’s South London Branch “George Daniels Memorial Lecture” we are delighted to welcome back “Oliver Cooke.” From the British Museum.
Oliver will look at the life of the extraordinary three-wheeled clock, Breguet No. 111, which was conceived during the French Revolution, and which came to the British Museum in 2015. The ground will be set with a brief look at Breguet’s beginnings, some of his accomplishments and a survey of the other Breguet clocks at the BM. The conception and production of 111 will then be discussed, followed by a close look at its fascinating features, including the three wheels (for a one-week duration), a revolutionary calendar and two forms of temperature compensation. Its subsequent life will then be followed, from its first sale until its arrival at the BM.
Oliver has been a Curator of Horology in the Department of Britain, Europe & Prehistory at the British Museum since 2007. He is responsible for managing the care, storage, display, and conservation of the diverse collection of over 8,000 items, which includes clocks, watches, scientific instruments, components, prints and ephemera, ranging from the humble to the pre-eminent. Having studied the conservation of antique clocks at West Dean College, and subsequently becoming an MBHI, his practical background is essential in informing his technical and historical research into these complex objects.
As has become the tradition for this event we will be laying on Mince Pies and Mulled Wine.
Doors open at 19:30, Starting 20.00 hours.
The meeting will be held at The White Hart Barn in Godstone.
We are pleased to be able to hold the branch auction which is one of the highlights of our calendar for many members. It is a chance to grab a bargain or make a bit of extra cash by selling those unwanted horological items.
There is always something for everyone at this event, so why not dig out those horological treasures that have been lurking under the bench or in the back of the cupboard, you may be pleasantly surprised at how much they realise.
This is a private auction and is therefore only open to members of, the BHI, BHI Branches, West Dean College or Epping Forest Horology Centre. Please bring proof of membership to enable us to issue a bidding number.
Details are as follows:
Booking in will commence at 18:15 in the Lindley Room which is the left hand door side room. This will need to be done quietly and no entrance to the main hall will be allowed.
Entry to the main hall – and viewing – will not be available until 19.30.
NO LOTS WILL BE TAKEN IN AFTER 19:45 to allow time for administration and for a start of around at 20:30.
Payments for purchasers up to £100 are required to be made in cash. By prior arrangement and agreement with the Treasurer we will accept cheques for total payments over £100.
No commission is charged to buyers. Sellers only pay £1.50 per lot entered. If you wish to set a reserve, you must bid up to that price and collect your lot at the end of the evening if not sold.
We reserve the right to refuse any lots containing fluids / powders and the like that are not in secure & sealed containers.
Electrical / electronic items are sold with no guarantee as to their condition or safety. All such equipment should be checked by a suitably qualified electrician.
I am sure many of you have seen, or have had, examples of clocks and watches signed and made by Women. My own interest started by wanting to know more about Mary Anne Viet.
But the “Highlighting Mary” project began when Geoff asked Su to try and find how many women were listed as clockmakers or watchmakers in Watchmakers and Clockmakers of the World, G. H. Baille and B. Loomes, and in various text that were already published. Taking note of how many women were working alongside horologists, or women who could not legally run businesses in their own names, but who took over the running of the business when widowed or un-married. This was the tip of the Iceberg, and they discovered two women working in West Street Midhurst where Geoff has his business. This spurred Su and Geoff on to, “A shop in time “, an exhibit at the Chichester Museum. Today they continue to compile a very extensive spread sheet of information. Inspiration also came from Dr Mike Flannery with his regular “My Bench View” in the horological Journal issue no 141 Early Female Clockmakers. Duncan Greig.
Doors open at 19:30, Starting 20.00 hours.
The meeting will be held at The White Hart Barn in Godstone.
The advantages of coupling the latest technology with the skills exercised by horologists were on show during the branch’s “Show and Tell” meeting and social evening.
Members were invited to take along projects on which they were working, as well as non-horological items of interest – and the ways in which technology could be utilised became a clear theme.
CNC – computer numerical control – was on display in two major exhibits.
One was a home-produced bench-top gearwheel cutting machine from workshop tutor and clock and watch restoration specialist Antonio Da Silva, who aided by Alan White.
The other was a four-axis cutter grinder – the AutoNorv – devised and made by branch secretary Norvin Simpson for his firm, All Seasons Tool Hire, and used to sharpen the cutters on stump-griding tools his firm lets out.
Both devices were capable of performing their functions automatically once the relevant parameters were fed into their controlling computer programmes.
Mr Da Silva’s gear-wheel cutter was developed with a creative mixture of parts. The base was the cross-slide from a Chinese-made milling machine, while the two main aluminium vertical posts were machined in Portugal by a friend of his who owns an engineering company.
Antonio Da Silva’s wheel cutter. Picture: Courtesy of Mike Dodd
The workpiece itself is held in an Arceuro Trade ER20 collet holder on a ground shaft, while the vertical shaft was taken from a Myford lathe.
The device, which is powered by hybrid Stepper motors driven by a B-Plus Stepper Motor Driver Board, is controlled by a CNC program written by Australia-based Rex Swensen.
Mr White, who helped design and build the machine, said that in fully automatic operation, once the parameters were fed into the program, the machine would take about half-an-hour to cut a 60-tooth wheel. It was also capable of cutting pinions.
The device cost a total of about £350.00 – some parts were salvaged or cannibalised from other machines – and took about 100 hours to design, assemble and complete, he added.
In comparison, a second-hand wheel-cutting machine might be obtained for about £1,200 or one would have to spend somewhere in the region of £16,000 for a machine from Swiss manufacturer Schaublin.
Branch member Peter Stonebridge admires the AutoNorv Picture: Courtesy of Trevor Keast
The AutoNorv, which Mr Simpson spent about 20 months devising, designing and making, at a cost of about £1,000, is used to sharpen the eight finger teeth cutters used in each of the nine stump-grinding tools his firm hires out.
The stump-grinders, he said, were used virtually every, and the cutters fitted in them had to be sharpened every time they were hired out.
“I used to do it by hand, which was repetitive and took a little time. But with this machine I can just put a tool in and the machine does the work for me,” he said.
So far, he said, he had used the machine to sharpen the grinding tools more than 6,000 times – and as he took just over two minutes to sharpen each cutter, meant that the machine had saved him some 200 hours of repetitive sharpening work, because all he had to do was insert the tool and switch it on.
The AutoNorv – Inside the box. Picture: Courtesy of Mike Dodd
At busy times the firm got through 200 of the cutting teeth each week.
The design for the machine – a four-axis CNC cutter grinder – and its components were drawn on Freecad.
The machine itself is controlled with G-Code running on Mach3, a popular CNC control software, and connected to the computer via a USB motion controller.
Two sensors in the device test the cutters – there is a micro switch to check for new or old cutters and an optical sensor to measure cutter wear.
The cutters are honed on two three-phase inverter-controlled grinding motors, one of which has a coarse aluminium oxide wheel for grinding the steel backing, while the other has a diamond wheel for grinding the tungsten carbide tip.
Each wheel also has dust extraction, which is switched on and off with solid state relays.
Another application of technology was shown by member Clive Steer, who demonstrated a servo-controlled brushless DC electric motor mounted on a specially made stand to drive a watchmaker’s lathe.
The motor, Mr Steer said, was extremely powerful, despite being extremely small compared to the motors usually used to power such lathes, and capable of maintaining the same rate of RPM even when under a considerable load.
Another major advantage was that it was silent in operation – meaning that operating a watchmaker’s lathe would no longer be accompanied by the whining and rattling noises usually associated with such work.
Also among the interesting and varied items shown by members at the session was the mechanical clock which once graced the outside wall of the offices of manufacturers Thwaites and Reed in Clerkenwell, central London.
Thwaites and Reed, which was founded in 1740, is still a going concern, is now based in Rottingdean, Brighton. The clock in question, however, graced the outside wall on the front of its former base in 15 Bowling Green Lane, Clerkenwell, in the centre of the East End, from about 1930 until the Second World War.
Clerkenwell was a major centre for the English watch and clock-making industry, but suffered a sharp decline in its fortunes when William Pitt the Younger, the then Prime Minister, introduced the Duties on Clocks and Watches Act 1797.
The Act levied a tax of 10 shillings (50p) – about £80.50 now – which was the equivalent of three days’ wages for a skilled tradesman, on gold watches, with silver and other metal watches at being taxed at 2s 6d (12.5p), the equivalent of £20 in modern-day purchasing power.
Watch and clock-makers and dealers had had to buy an annual licence at the cost of 2s 6d if they were in London and 1s (5p) outside the capital.
The tax was in force for only 13 months before it was repealed because of devastating effect it was having on the industry – but by that time the damage was done, with demand for clocks and watches falling through the floor, output dropping by half, and thousands of skilled workers either leaving the industry for other occupations, or emigrating.
The Thwaites and Reed clock, designed in 1930 by Frank Ainscow Buggins, was removed from the Clerkenwell site in 1978 and regarded as lost until it turned up on auction and sales website eBay, bearing another company’s name, two years ago, since when its restoration has been a major project by branch members.
Plans to mount the restored and refurbished clock on the front wall at Soper Hall, home of the branch’s workshop, are currently in abeyance while the local authority considers the application, which will involve mounting a stout steel framework on the building to support the weight of the device.
The clock will also be powered by an electric motor rather than operating purely mechanically, as it did when first built.
-Mike Dodd
Doors open at 19:30, Starting 20.00 hours.
The meeting will be held at The White Hart Barn in Godstone.
His clocks and the conservation of his month Astronomical Regulator with Planetarium.
The Artist and Clockmaker once quoted, “I’m not working I’m playing”.
Roland was born in Hull but spent his early life in France, and by the age of 7 was enthusiastically making models from a gifted Meccano set. By 1951 he had trained at Kings College London, then entered the military as an engineer responsible for the radar workshop. A chance visit to an art exhibition in 1954, took Roland on another path, the world of art. He studied at Chelsea School of Art and was trained by, amongst others, Henry Moore and Ceri Richards. He was awarded a French government grant and not surprisingly the Cubist and Surrealist movements had a great influence on him. He did however say that if it was not for his grounding in engineering, he could not do the art he was famous for. In 1960, a dial clock re-sparked his interest of engineering in clocks, and by 1972, with basic hand tools, he had created his first clock signed, SIVRAJ LONDRA. Basing the design on a simplified Edwardian longcase, the upper part of the clock with an Orrey, of the sun, earth, and the moon. A fire in his London studio in the early seventies, meant Roland moved to Hastings, eventually moving into an old, converted chapel. This gave him the high spaces and light for his artwork which was conducted mostly in the summer months, leaving the winter for horology, in his smaller and warmer workshop, where interestingly he also had his bed. 1974, he now has a lathe and pursued making more complicated clocks. He inspirationally made punches to create the stars, in his planispheres, from rods, cut like pinions. Robert got to know Roland from the visits he made to his shop, from 1985 till 1995. Robert even recounting the “Happy Days” of transporting Roland and one of his clocks, home from an exhibition at the Science Museum in his Ford Fiesta. Robert was well versed in recounting creation after creation as Rolands clocks became more and more complicated and was able to give us an insight as to how he was such a prolific maker. Parts often scavenged from old movements would be utilised in the construction of clocks, and for the making of sculptures, and the animated figures that Roland went on to make for his films. Robert was to say that often Roland would find the glass dome first, then design the clock to go underneath it. Throughout the 1990s the clocks became more and more ambitious with further complications and six month, or year duration. Now he was signing all his clocks, Jarvis Hastings, he was also senior tutor in drawing at Brighton Polytechnic, which became Brighton University. Rolands chief influencers in the design of his clocks were Antide Janvier, James Ferguson, Philipp Matthaus Hahn, Zacharie Raingo.
In 2017, Bonhams, held an auction with the more complicated astronomical clocks, a fine month going one with perpetual calendar has ended up in the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers gallery at the Science Museum. Robert and Johan ten Hoeve were responsible for the conservation of this complex complicated clock before its installation in the gallery. Robert kindly took us through many photographs detailing the complexity of the Astronomical dial and the movement.
We thanked him in the customary way with a bottle of clock oil.
-Duncan Greig.
Doors open at 19:30, Starting 20.00 hours.
The meeting will be held at The White Hart Barn in Godstone.