History of Antique Clocks

In the Beginning...

From our earliest beginnings, mankind has always tried to measure and record the passing of time. That annoying alarm clock beside your bed owes its existence to over 6,000 years of thinking about and tinkering with gadgets to accurately enumerate its passage.Early farmers divided time into broad quarters or seasons to mark periods for planting, growing and harvesting. Back in the day, on the farm, the exact hours was not really important.

It wasn't until civilizations matured and became more complex, desiring more order and governance, that a need for a more precise measure of time materialized. Egyptians divided the day into two parts, using the shadow cast from an obelisk to mark its division. Similar gadgets for keeping time included the hourglass, indexed candles burning at a specific rate, and water powered devices.

Enter Mechanical Clocks

As with many traditions of modern day, time measurement was driven by religion. The regulation of monastic calls to prayer became the genesis of mechanical tower clocks. Its prominence in the village and city soon came to synchronize everything within their sphere of influence.

The very first mechanical clocks, without pendulums, came to fruition in the last half of the 13th century, again most likely driven by the religious needs of monks in central Europe. This is highlighted by their placement in churches. Most only struck bells on the hour and didn't have hands or faces. Visible faces and dials didn't enter the stage till perhaps 100 years later. These clocks were very large and very heavy, made of iron frames and gears forged and tooled by blacksmiths.

Around 1580 Galileo watched a swinging lamp hanging from a long chain in a cathedral. After studying its swing he discovered that each swing was equal and maintained a natural rate and motion. Later he discovered the rate depended on the length of the rope or chain and the weight or pendulum. About 80 years later in 1640 Galileo designed the mechanism for a clock using the swing of a pendulum but wasn't able to construct it before his death. Sixteen years later in 1656 Christian Huygens incorporated a pendulum into a clock mechanism he designed and observed that it kept extraordinary time. He found he could regulate the speed of the movement by lowering or raising the pendulum.

Huygens discovery made it possible for clocks to become accurate to within three minutes a day. A great improvement over the half hour a day accuracy previously experienced. This increase in accuracy made the introduction of the minute hand possible. The anchor escapement improved the accuracy even more to within a few seconds per week.

Somewhere in the first half of the fifteenth century small domestic clocks entered the stage. Probably made by the local gunsmith or locksmith. Weight driven lantern clocks became popular for use in the affluent home after 1630.

Early household clocks were usually mounted high on walls to allow for long pendulums and the large cast-iron weights used to drive the mechanisms. Grandfather clocks evolved from this design, using the wooden enclosure to hide the unsightly works of the clock.

Although Hyugens' pendulum design gave a quantum leap forward in clock making, English clock makers were the cream of the crop in Europe from 1660 till about the end of the 19th century when Americans introduced inexpensive brass movements.