George Margetts, London
AN EXTREMELY RARE FRAMED ASTRONOMICAL ROTULA CIRCA 1779, NO. 128
Details & Cataloguing
The Celebration of the English Watch Part IV, George Daniels 20th Century Innovator
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London
London
George Margetts, London
AN EXTREMELY RARE FRAMED ASTRONOMICAL ROTULA CIRCA 1779, NO. 128
• Layered three-dimensional paper with rotational indications inscribed: to the top corners: "A table of the Mean Time, of New Moon in January new stile from 1763, to 1910" to the lower corners: "The New Invented Astronomical Rotula for shewing the rising & setting of the sun, moon and stars, with the time of new moon and full moons and eclipses for 6000 years before or after any year of the 18th century, by George Margetts," along the base the dedication: "To his Grace the Duke of Marlborough, this Astronomical Rotula is by Permission, most humbly dedicated by his Grace's most humble servant" with, beneath this to the left "No. 128" and to the right "George Margetts, No. 12 Ludgate Street," printed at the lower edge of the zodiac ring the engraver: "T. Blake, fculp, No. 53, Shoe Lane, Holborn"
dimensions framed 385mm x 420mm
Read Condition Report
Read Condition Report
dimensions framed 385mm x 420mm
Literature
Terence Camerer Cuss, The English Watch 1585-1970, 2009, pp. 270-271, pl. 164
Catalogue Note
Astronomical rotulas by Margetts are exceptionally rare, another, although incomplete example, numbered 110, belongs to the Royal Scottish Museum. As much a mathematician as a horologist, George Margetts was born in Woodstock, Oxfordshire on 17th June, 1748. It is thought that he was apprenticed as a clockmaker locally, perhaps working for the first 10 years of his career close to Woodstock. Margetts was made free of the Clockmakers’ Company in 1779, by which time he had presumably moved to London. He was elected to the Livery of the Clockmakers’ Company in 1799. Margetts, was a petitioner to the Board of Longitude on several occasions, with the goal to secure funds for his various projects that related to finding Longitude and improvements in astronomy. The Board did grant him some funding as did the East India Company. In 1789, 90 and 93, he published two volumes of tables "…containing the True Horary Angle with the Altitudes of the Sun, Moon and Stars.." and a logarithmic rotula to accompany them. Though little is known about his life, he remains remembered for his astronomical watches and eight-day chronometers. Margetts died at home in 1804 after a time spent in St. Luke’s lunatic asylum. For further information on Margetts, see Anthony J Turner, "New Light on George Margetts", Antiquarian Horology, vol. VII, no. 4, 1971, pp. 304-316 and Anthony G. Randall, The Time Museum Catalogue of Chronometers, 1992, pp. 234-240. For an example of a George Margetts’ astronomical watch, see lot 44.
Suggested Lots
The Celebration of the English Watch Part IV, George Daniels 20th Century Innovator
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London
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