John and James Harrison, A historically significant Ebonized Precision Longcase Clock, English, circa 1726

11¾-inch restored dial with silvered chapter ring signed Jno Harrison, Barrow and set on a broken-arch wood dial plate, decorated with gilt stylized flowers and strap work, the center with putti and apertures for calendar and seconds, the arch signed James Harrison, a maintaining power lever on the upper right side, large wood plated movement with oak wheels, lignum vitae lantern pinions and bushes, grasshopper escapement with brass escape wheel and replaced  adjustable cycloidal cheeks on the backplate, the strike with inside countwheel cut from the great wheel and top mounted bell, the replaced pendulum with brass and steel gridiron rod and calibrated regulation nut, the case with domed caddy cresting and gilt-wood finials, gilt capped hood pilasters, the trunk with shaped top to the door and inset with a gilt-wood lenticle, and a replica equation table behind a glazed panel, the plain plinth with moulded base, the sides with raised panels to allow for the oscillation of the pendulum bob, with a folder containing the history of the clock provided by the late Colonel Quill.

Time Museum Inventory No. 2000

The Science Museum. Collectors Pieces, Clocks and Watches.  (May 29–August 9, 1964), item 11, illustrated in the catalogue on p. 67
Harrison Exhibition, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, December 1976

Antiquarian Horology.  (September 1971.)
Quill, Colonel H.  The Grasshopper Escapement, pp. 288-296
Quill, Colonel H.  John Harrison: The Man Who Found Longitude.  London, 1966, pp. 22, fig. 8
Roberts, Derek.  Precision Pendulum Clocks.  Pennsylvania, 2003, chapter 10, p. 190

John Harrison (1693-1776) is remembered particularly for the wonderful sea clocks that he made in his quest to solve the problem of finding longitude at sea. His early clocks, such as the present longcase clock, had movements that were made of wood and which incorporate a number of unique features which were later used in his sea clocks. His skill with wood was inherited from his father Henry Harrison (1665-1728) who was a joiner. The family moved to Barrow-upon-Humber, a remote village in North Lincolnshire, in 1697 and John Harrison continued to live and work there until the age of 44. Trained by his father to be a joiner he would have been involved in many of the activities in the village and particularly relevant was his involvement with the church and the re-hanging of bells. He was interested in music and undertook the training of the church choir. He must have had an early fascination with horology as he had completed his first clock by 1713 and no doubt had experimented with many test pieces before this.

With a lively intellect, and working in isolation away from any of the usual horological manufacturing districts, he developed some unique ways of overcoming the problems of keeping a clock running and ensuring good timekeeping. Although principally a joiner, John Harrison found time to make at least eight clocks between 1713 and 1730 which can be divided into two separate groups. All have wooden movements but the first three, dated 1713, 1715 and 1717, have a conventional brass escape wheel and steel pivots running in brass bushes. The success of these early clocks must have gained him something of a reputation as a maker of clocks because he was commissioned by Sir Charles Pelham of Brocklesby Park to make a clock for the stable turret about 1720. He set about this challenging task by constructing the movement and wheel train from wood, but on a much larger scale than his previous clocks. He anticipated the problems that could arise for a clock that was housed in an uninsulated building and which would have probably been damp at certain times of the year. He realized that steel pivots running in brass bushes would soon suffer from corrosion and so he used brass pivots running in lignum vitae; no doubt his work as a joiner had alerted him to the special oily characteristics of this hard wood. The escapement caused problems and, after installation, Harrison was called back to attend to the clock on a number of occasions because difficulties arose with the running that could be attributed to the design of the escapement.

After many experiments John Harrison designed a new escapement, now known as 'grasshopper’ which will run successfully without lubrication.  At this time he appears to have made other alterations such as fitting roller pinions, with lignum vitae rollers, and anti-friction rollers.  All of these alterations seem to have been designed to allow the clock to run without lubrication thereby overcoming the inadequacies of the oil that was available at the time. The problems that Harrison encountered and overcame with this turret clock were to set him on the path of seeking to develop precision timekeeping which was to occupy him for the rest of his life.

By the early 1720’s James Harrison (1704-1766), John’s younger brother, had started to take an active interest in the clocks being made by his brother and indeed his name appears on the surviving precision longcase clocks that were made from 1725 onwards.  It is possible that he assisted his brother in the manufacture of the Brocklesby Park clock since it is signed Harrison without a forename. Like his brother and father James was a skilled joiner but after 1725 seems to have concentrated on making three high-precision longcase clocks with his brother.

After the Brocklesby Park clock was successfully completed John Harrison sought to make a smaller domestic clock which incorporated the various features that he had invented to improve the running of the turret clock. He completed the design of this first precision longcase clock by 1725 and proceeded to make it shortly afterwards, there followed a second clock dated 1727 and a third clock was completed by 1728. A fourth movement, probably never completed by the Harrison brothers, was finished by an unknown hand in the 19^th century, original Harrison features had never been fitted or were later removed by the 19^th century clockmaker.  This fourth clock was re-made in correct Harrison style in 1975 using clock three as a model.

The longcase clocks kept such excellent time that John Harrison was encouraged to improve on what he had already achieved and thereby rise to the challenge of perfecting a precision timekeeper that could be used at sea. It seems that Harrison first heard of the Longitude Act in 1726 and shortly thereafter abandoned his work on domestic clocks to concentrate on working towards the manufacture of a precision sea clock.

The longcase clock from the Time Museum is almost certainly the first longcase clock made by James and John Harrison and may be dated 1725/6. Neither it, nor clock no. 2 would have started life with a gridiron pendulum as Harrison did not invent that form of compensation until 1727/8. Clock no. 3, dated 1728, was probably the only clock to have been fitted originally with this type of pendulum. These longcase clocks are unique in design and immediately identifiable as coming from the Harrison workshop. The wooden frames are large and secured by twenty-two mortice-and-tenon joints which are glued together to increase rigidity. The dial is fitted directly on to the frame thereby dispensing with dial pillars. The construction of the wheels is remarkable; the main body of each wheel is slotted around the circumference and individual segments of oak teeth are set into the body to ensure that the grain is radial all round the wheel to give the greatest possible strength.

The history of the three completed clocks is complex and it is remarkable that all three have survived to the present day. Clock no. 2, dated 1727, was sold by John Harrison and is now in a private collection. Clock no. 3, dated 1728, is now owned by the Clockmakers’ Company, London and can be seen in their museum. The first clock, included in this Time Museum sale, has had an eventful history. It was discovered in dilapidated condition by Colonel Quill in 1954; the dial and case had been overpainted in a pinkish brown color and the dial decorated in the Victorian manner. It is this clock that Harrison depended upon to test the first of his sea clocks and it seems it remained in the Harrison family for many years. Letters exist which refer to a Harrison regulator 'Clock no.1’ which James Harrison (died 1875) was repairing for its owner John Harrison (1761-1842). The repairs had not been completed at the time of John Harrison’s death in 1842 and in March of 1843 James Harrison wrote to John’s widow requesting payment for work that he had done. The history of the clock then becomes obscure and it is likely that it was sold out of the Harrison family. When Colonel Quill acquired the clock in 1954 from a Mr. Barton-King he learned that Mr. Barton-King’s father (Andrew King), who had been a journeyman to a Hull clockmaker, had found Harrison no. 1 in the cellar of an old inn in Hull by the name of the Old Malt Shovel circa 1861/5. Apparently it had lain there amongst a lot of debris for many years. It was subsequently restored, probably by Andrew King, since his grandson related to Colonel Quill in 1973 that he remembered, as a youth, seeing a Harrison clock movement in his grandfather’s workshop.

From information gathered from a newspaper Colonel Quill tracked down the Harrison no. 1 longcase clock to a private address in Hull where it was being stored on behalf of its then owner Mr. Barton-King.  The clock was eventually purchased by Colonel Quill who took the movement back to his flat in London and delivered the case to C.A. Ilbert who agreed to store it in his house until restoration could be arranged. Ilbert died before the restoration was commenced and so the clock case was moved to the British Horological Institute in Clerkenwell and stored in their library. Considerable trouble was taken to restore the clock case and dial to as near what they must have been like originally. A full record of the restoration was made by Colonel Quill and is included with the clock in this sale. The clock was sold by Colonel Quill to Seth Atwood in 1980 and was exhibited in the Time Museum until it closed on March 12, 1999.

See Quill, John Harrison: The Man Who Found Longitude, pp. 23-30, where the author discusses "The Precision Regulator Clocks of John and James Harrison". Also see p. 22, fig. 8, for an illustration of the present lot.

To the best of our knowledge it would appear that the present precision longcase clock most likely represents the only known clock made by John Harrison to be offered in recent times at public auction.