Chats on Old Copper and Brass

by Fred. W. Burgess

Those who wish to study the beautiful dials and engraved faces of clocks and watches in order that they may realize the difference in the products of makers during the last few centuries, should visit the splendid collection in the Guildhall Museum, loaned by the Clockmakers' Company. The work of the old clockmakers was that of the very best. It was made to last, and the metal they chose for their operations appears to have been very suitable for the purpose. In evidence of the lasting quality of old brass works, a well-known writer has put forward the interesting story of a chamber clock presented by Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn on their wedding day. It found its way into the Strawberry Hill collection of Horace Walpole, and at the famous sale of those interesting curios and souvenirs of great persons that noted minister had gathered together, it was purchased for £100 by the late Queen Victoria. Harrison Ainsworth says: "This token of endless affection remains the same after three centuries; but four years after it was given, the object of Henry's eternal love was sacrificed on the scaffold. The clock still goes, but surely it should have been stopped for ever when Anne Boleyn died!"

The advent of table clocks came with the discovery of the use of a mainspring by the Nuremberg clockmakers in the sixteenth century. In the British Museum there is a clock in the form of a ship made for the Emperor Rudolph II in 1581. There are many other fine examples of curiously designed clocks, including a water clock by Finchet, of Cheapside, and a French astronomical clock with astrolabe, and others with automatic figures on view there, as well as very remarkable types in the collection of clock dials and watches given to the Museum by the late Mr. Octavius Morgan.

The early clocks, the dials of which were of brass, had only one finger, for the minute-hand was not known until 1670, and the second finger a much later invention.

In Fig. 85 is a typical example of a brass engraved watch clock face and dial, which has a perforated hinged cover and is exceptionally well engraved.

Old Watches.

Watches were costly in the days when so much time was expended on their manufacture. Those were the days of good workmanship in which watchmakers excelled. They put much labour into the ornamentation of the works, "watch-clocks," and dial plates, so many of which were beautifully engraved, tooled with great skill, and cleverly perforated. The dials were in early days unprotected, hence the need of a case, often of brass, and when made of some other material were frequently ornamented with brass inlay. It was not until the middle of the seventeenth century that glass or crystal covers were invented; that was about the time, too, when the enamelling of dials came into vogue.

The pocket watch brought with it fobs, chains, and watch-keys or winders, mostly of brass, which should not be overlooked. In a representative collection there are crank keys similar to large clock winders, but, of course, made in miniature. Then after various developments brass and Pinchbeck fob keys came into vogue, and later still ornamental keys with and without the addition of stones, the majority being made in brass. A number of these little objects can still be collected quite cheaply, and nicely mounted make a very interesting addition to the more ornamental side of brass metal-work.

Forecasting the Weather.

The weather has found men a subject for discussion and given them opportunities of speaking a pleasant word of comradeship when meeting in the country or in town. To comment upon its fickleness has become as common a mode of salutation as passing the time of day. The topic is an ancient one and the interest in it has been sustained, for to gauge the coming changes has taken the attention of men from the earliest times. To study the fleeting cloud, to note the coming storm by the direction of the wind, or to notice the damp in the air as the mist rises and is wafted over the fields, has always been a favourite occupation. It was so before the day of barometers and scientific instruments, and it is equally so by those who prefer the pronouncement of the weather prophet rather than the barometer gauge. Galileo is said to have invented the thermometer, but it was his pupil Torricelli, who discovered the barometer. His townsmen in Faenza, in the north of Italy, some years ago erected a monument to his memory, putting up the biggest barometer known. In common with other scientific instruments the barometer has afforded opportunities to the worker in metal and to the art designer, for like the clock case it has been made a thing of beauty as well as one of use. The very remarkable barometer illustrated in Fig. 86 is an elaborate work of the brassfounder and exceedingly ornate. It is a very exceptional piece, but there are other barometers of considerable beauty in the hands of collectors of old bronze and metal-work.

Some of the old scientific instruments are very clumsy looking when compared with modern workmanship. About them it is true there is a quaint beauty and a silent tribute to the skill and ingenuity of early inventors, those who were but groping, perhaps blindly, in the initial stages of an undeveloped science. Scientists always take a delight in the instruments which their predecessors have used, and when they realize by comparison the difficulties the early pioneers had to contend with on account of the inefficient instruments in their possession they wonder at the advance that particular science made in their day.