Collectors have too frequently associated Yorkshire clocks with the later periods, with ponderous cases of gigantic size, but, as is shown, the Yorkshire makers are worthy of considerable attention by connoisseurs as having a lineage extending back into the periods when clockmaking was at its best, and when the case-maker was not such a preponderating factor as he seems to have been in the early nineteenth century days in the North.
Liverpool and the District.—In regard to Liverpool and the vicinity, at the Tercentenary Historical Exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery in 1907 a collection of clocks and watches was made to illustrate the art of the clockmaker in that part of the country. By the kindness of George H. Hewitt, Esq., J.P., who arranged these exhibits, we are enabled to supply the names of many of the Liverpool clockmakers.
Peter Litherland patented the rack lever escapement in 1793-4 which Robert Roskell, the Liverpool maker, introduced into his watches. At the above Exhibition was shown a pendulum watch by George Taylor, about 1700, and one by William Tarleton, 1797, with the Government stamp indicating that the tax of a guinea had been paid. This was in 1797, the first and only year when a tax on watches and clocks was levied. One remembers the fine portrait of Colonel Tarleton in uniform, with one foot on a cannon, after the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, signed I. Johnson, on a Liverpool mug. He was the Member of Parliament for Liverpool from 1790 to 1812. This family gave the name to Tarleton Street, Liverpool.
That Liverpool and the district was renowned for its watches is shown by a silver watch made by Thomas Worsley, Liverpool, inscribed, "Presented to Robert Burns by his brother ploughmen of Air (sic) March 9, 1785." Among other makers at Liverpool whose names are found on watches are Fair-clough (about 1800), Edmonds (about 1770), Joseph Finney (about 1770), Robert Roskell (about 1800), M. J. Tobias & Co. (1820), Harrington (1790), Peter Hope (1795), J. Johnson (1796).
LONG-CASE EIGHT-DAY CLOCK.
Maker, Thurston Lassell (Toxteth Park, Liverpool).
Date, about 1745.
(Reproduced by courtesy of George H. Hewitt, Esq., J.P.)
LONG-CASE MAHOGANY EIGHT-DAY CLOCK.
Maker, Henry Higginbotham (Macclesfield).
The Gothic panel in door is a noticeable feature.
(By courtesy of A. Bromley Sanders, Esq., Exeter.)