LONG-CASE EIGHT-DAY CLOCK.
With dial showing days of month. Oak case veneered in mahogany.
Maker, Thomas Wall (Birmingham). Date, about 1795.
(In possession of author.)

Clockmakers of the Midlands.—As typical of the fine work produced, the bracket clock by Sam Watson, of Coventry, 1687, illustrated (p. [181]), shows that the provincial maker was at that date in no way on a lower plane than his contemporary in London. Other makers are Wilson (Warwick), 1709; John Whitehurst (Derby), 1785—a fine long-case clock by this maker is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; W. Francis (Birmingham), and Thomas Wall (Birmingham), 1798. An example by this maker is illustrated (p. [233]), exhibiting a pastoral scene painted in the lunette of the dial. This clock—in the possession of the author—keeps excellent time although 120 years old, and has gone for ten years without stopping.

Of Nottingham makers, the following names of early craftsmen are found on watches: Isaac Alexander, about 1760 (a watch, gold inner case, white dial; outer case of shagreen, with portrait of Charles Stuart by J. June, 1745), and Thomas Hudson, about 1790 (silver, white dial; outer case of tortoiseshell, with silver mounts). The name of Hen. Page, Upper Broughton (Notts), is found on a brass clock, and John Kirk was a maker at Epperstone and Skegby before he came to London in 1677 and was admitted as a member of the Clockmakers' Company. Among the collection of watches at Nottingham Museum, apart from the two above-mentioned, are a good many by makers of a later date, mainly of the early nineteenth century: John Lingford, A. Shepperley, William Young—all of Nottingham, and Geo. Stacey, Worksop.

Among the other watches on exhibition are an early one by Robert Dent (Lincoln), No. 61, and a watch with gold case with chased repoussé figures and ornament by J. Windmills, the celebrated London maker, 1671-1700.

This short list of Midland makers is obviously incomplete, and it is to be hoped that some painstaking horologists will amplify it and do honour to the makers and to the counties concerned.

The Home Counties.—Thomas Tompion (1671-1713), the famous London maker, commenced at Bedford and ended at Bath. We have seen a brass lantern clock engraved "Thos. Tonkink de Bedforde." This might very well be one of his early clocks, and we know his great last triumph in the famous long-case clock in the Pump Room at Bath. But apart from this incidental connection of the "father of English watchmaking" with the provinces, there stands Joseph Knibb, of Oxon, who was admitted to the Clockmakers' Company of London in 1677. He worked in London for the Court of Charles II. But he was established in Oxfordshire, as is shown by the copper token he issued, with inscription "Joseph Knibb Clockmaker in Oxon," and on reverse the dial of a clock with initials I.K. in centre. We give an illustration of this token.

A long-case eight-day clock finely decorated in marquetry, in date about 1690, is illustrated (p. [237]). This exhibits the work of Knibb as being equal, as his employment at the Court shows, to the leading London makers of his day. In the chapter on Marquetry, p. [79], will be found a notice of this clock in regard to its relation to other styles of marquetry, and its place in the sequence there described.