Part 3

'Peter Hele, a clockmaker, was everywhere esteemed a great artist on account of the pocket-clocks, which, soon after the year 1500, he first made in Nuremberg, with small wheels of steel. The invention, which with great justice may be ascribed to him, being something new, was praised by almost every one, even by the mathematicians of the time, with great admiration. He died 1540. On this subject Johannes Cocclæus, in his Commentary on the Cosmographia of Pomponius Mela, published in Nuremberg in 1511, makes the following announcement:--"Inveniuntur in dies subtiliora, etenim Petrus Hele, juvenis adhuc admodum, opera fecit, quæ doctissimi admirantur mathematici, nam ex ferro parva fabricat horologia, plurimis digesta rotulis, quæ, quocunque vertuntur, absque ullo pondere, et monstrant et pulsant XL. horas. Etiamsi in sinu, marsupiove contineantur."' This quotation from Cocclæus may be thus translated:--Ingenious things are just now being invented, for Peter Hele, as yet but a young man, hath made works which even the most learned mathematicians admire, for he fabricates small horologes of iron fitted with many wheels, which, whithersoever they are turned, and without any weight, both show and strike forty hours,--whether they be carried in the bosom or the pocket.

Doppelmayer in continuation says: 'This, already so written by Cocclæus in 1511, shows in the clearest way, that pocket-clocks were made at Nuremberg many years ago, and he has fairly attributed the invention of them to this artist, since it was the most deserving of admiration, and the newest of his time, and which will be considered as a Nuremberg invention; whence also clocks of this kind were for a long time called Nuremberg living eggs, because they at first used to make them in the form of small eggs, which name is to be found in the German translation in chapter 26 of a strange book which F. Rabelais has left behind him. Hence it is evident how erroneous it is to ascribe, as many do, the invention of small striking-clocks, as of these pocket-clocks, to Isaac Habrecht, a well-known mathematician who lived about the beginning of the last century, and dwelt at Strasburg, whereas our Peter Hele had made them in Nuremberg 100 years before.'

The art of watch-making soon extended itself over Europe, for we find that in France, in 1544, Francis I. enacted a statute in favour of the corporation of master clockmakers at Paris, to the effect that no one should be permitted to make horologes unless he should have been previously admitted into that society. Of the most antique watches there are some very interesting collections at the South Kensington Museum and other places,--originally brought together by private persons whose antiquarian knowledge has lit up the subject with wonderful interest. It would be impossible to furnish in a volume such as this, a regular series of such productions, showing the development of artistic skill in the embellishment and design of watches; we leave that duty to some future writer who shall prepare an _edition de luxe_, and show therein, in splendid colour-printing, all the beauties of enamelling on the precious metals, all the elegance, as well as perhaps the oddity, of design, which are to be observed in these highly-interesting works of art. We will, for the nonce, be content with interspersing our pages with a few examples, not perhaps of the highest quality in point of design, but yet worthy of notice, either as showing variety of form or as being made valuable by historical associations. One of the earliest specimens of very small watches which are now extant is the one given on the next page.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: Ancient Watch, in form of a Book.] | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+

This little time-piece dates from the period when blacksmiths were watch-makers, or at all events when watch-makers were blacksmiths. The works are all of iron; the case was made, probably, before glass was used for such instruments, and it is not unlikely that this watch is of as old a shape as even the Nuremberg eggs. A more ornamental time-piece, of perhaps a somewhat later date, is the curious little instrument which is portrayed in our next illustration; the works of which are also of iron. It possesses the advantage of serving either as a clock or a watch, or as both, being of a portable size, and yet when set on a stand would serve as a pretty ornament to a drawing-room table. The bell at the top is so arranged that when the hand touches a trigger the hour is struck upon it, but the bell itself may be detached without any interference with the movement by which the time is kept.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: Ancient Table Watch, with Bell for striking (Temp | | _circa_ 1525).] | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+

A clock was purchased by Queen Victoria at Strawberry Hill sale and is now at Windsor, which was a present from Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn, and since from Lady Elizabeth Germains to Horace Walpole. It is described by Walpole as a clock of silver gilt, richly chased, engraved and ornamented with fleurs-de-lys, little heads, &c. On the top sits a lion holding the arms of England, which are also on the sides. On the weights are the initial letters of Henry and Anne within true lover's knots, at the top 'Dieu et mon droit,' at the bottom 'the most happy.'

The emperor Charles V. (Henry's contemporary) was so much pleased with observing the movements of time-pieces, that it is related of him, that he frequently sat after his dinner with a number of them upon the table before him, and that even after his retirement to the monastery of St Just he still continued his interest in them. He endeavoured to adjust their movements and keep them in order, but, upon finding it impossible to make any two watches agree with each other in keeping time, he was induced to reflect how much more absurd it must be for a man to attempt to regulate the more varied and hidden emotions of nations in consonance with those in his own breast. Ancient watches used to strike the time, and we read of Charles V. and Louis XI. that, watches having been stolen from them in certain crowds, the thief was detected by their striking the hour.

In 1577 Moestlin had a clock so constructed as to make just 2528 beats in an hour, 146 of which were counted during the sun's passage over a meridian, and thus determined its diameter. The alarum or alarm is one of the earliest additions to the mechanism of the clock, and is still used in Dutch clocks. This contrivance took its origin from the circumstance of prayers being read at stated periods in monasteries by night as well as by day, such an invention being of course of much service in arousing the priest to perform his duties.

In 1631 the Company of Clockmakers was incorporated in England by Charles I., who granted them a charter prohibiting the importation of clocks, watches, and alarms. So that at this period Englishmen were sufficiently skilled in the production of horological instruments to consider their importation in the light of an intrusion. The Company consisted of a Master, three Wardens, and ten or more Assistants who had power to make by-laws for the government of all persons using the trade in or within ten miles of London. They were authorized to enter, with a constable or other officer, any ships, vessels, warehouses, shops, or other places, _where they shall suspect bad and deceitful works to be made or kept_, and if such were found they seized them in the King's name, and having proved their unworthiness, the objectionable works were broken up and destroyed. There are many instances mentioned of such 'searches' upon the Books of the Company, and although the practice has long become obsolete, for in these times of free trade no such restrictions would be tolerated, yet it would perhaps be found that some testing by a modern 'searcher' or tester would be of some protection to the public now-a-days, when thousands of watches are sold which, like Peter Pindar's razors, are intended rather for the market than for use. The following are illustrations of some time-keepers of the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: Ancient Watch with Dial, 1580.] | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+

This is a very curious but not uncommon combination of the watch with the dial,--the latter being marked inside the watch-case and having a gnomon moving on a hinge so as to allow of its lying flat and being enclosed within the case when not in use.

Our next illustration is of one of the earliest examples of a round watch made in England, the date being 1593. It contains not only a dial showing the hour, but a sort of general calendar in miniature.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: English Round Watch, 1593.] | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+

Of much about the same date is the following example in silver and brass. It is of the same style of time-keeper, and shows how our forefathers liked to know not only the time of day but the period of the month; and how they watched the moon's changes, and in a word made an almanac of their watches.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: Oval Watch, 1593.] | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+

It was not an unusual thing for religious persons who used rosaries at their devotions, to add to their beads a miniature skull, with a view it may be to remind themselves of the frailty of life by way of stimulus to the preparation for the future state. When watches were invented the Memento Mori death's head was made into a watch-case, as in the illustration on page 44.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: Ancient Ornamental Watch.] | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+

The Lauder family, of Grange and Fountain Hall, possess the _Memento Mori_ Watch there engraved, they having inherited it from their ancestors, the Setoun family. It was given by Queen Mary to Mary Setoun, of the house of Wintoun, one of the four Marys, maids of honour to the Scottish Queen. This very curious relic must have been intended to be placed on a _prie-dieu_, or small altar, in a private oratory; for it is too heavy to have been carried in any way attached to the person. The watch is of the form of a skull: on the forehead is the figure of Death, standing between a palace and a cottage; around is this legend from Horace: '_Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regumque turres_.' On the hind part of the skull is a figure of Time, with another legend from Horace: '_Tempus edax rerum tuque invidiosa vetustas_.' The upper part of the skull bears representations of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, and of the Crucifixion, each with Latin legends; and between these scenes is open-work, to let out the sound when the watch strikes the hours upon a small silver bell, which fills the hollow of the skull, and receives the works within it when the watch is shut.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: Old English Calendar Watch.] | | | |[Illustration: 'Memento Mori' Watch belonging to Mary Queen of Scots.]| +----------------------------------------------------------------------+

Nor about this time was the opportunity omitted of inculcating by means of pictorial watch illustrations, that Scriptural knowledge which was in the less educated times not so much taught by books as by pictures. The watch case given on the following page is of about 1600. It is obviously of English workmanship, and is a fair specimen of the period,--it may be, indeed, that, looking at it, one may well doubt whether art has much advanced in watch-ornamentation during the last 270 years or so.

We give our next illustration as another example of an ancient Table Watch. This watch has a revolving dial at the top, by means of which and the fixed point or hand the time is indicated (page 46).

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: Watch-case (_circa_ 1600).] | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+

Such was the state of clockwork when Galileo, the great astronomer, then a medical student at Pisa, happened to discover, while gazing up at the roof of the cathedral when he should, perhaps, have been devotionally occupied, that the lamps suspended therefrom by chains of equal lengths, swung, and made their vibrations in long or short arcs, in almost the same space of time,--a fact, the truth of which he ascertained by the beats of his pulse.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: Table-Watch, _circa_ 1630.] | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+

This isochronal property, as it was called, was described in a treatise which he published at Paris in 1639, entitled 'L'Usage du Cadron ou de l'Horloge physique universelle.' The first application which Galileo made of his discovery was the professional one of testing the rate and variations of the pulse, and it is even denied that he did more than suggest its applicability to clockwork.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: Ancient Silver Dial and Gold-cased Watch. One hand.] | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+

The honours of the invention of the pendulum-clock have been contested by Vincentio Galilei, son of the great astronomer, who is said to have made a pendulum-clock at Venice in 1649, and Christian Huygens, a noted Dutch mathematician, who (in his excellent treatise, 'De Horologio Oscillatorio,' which was the foundation of most of the subsequent improvements in horometrical machines) clearly shows that he had constructed a pendulum-clock previous to 1658. His reputation will be somewhat obscured, however, if we yield to the claims of an Englishman named Richard Harris, an ordinary workman, who, it is said, invented the pendulum-clock which was fixed in the turret of St Paul's, Covent Garden, in 1642, and which is generally believed to have been the first pendulum-clock in Europe. The pendulum when first applied to clocks was suspended by a silken cord, and the arc described by the bob or weight at its end was a segment of a circle, but it being found that this was in opposition to scientific knowledge, and that the curve described by it should properly be part of a cycloid or oval; Huygens tried to remedy the error by causing the silk cord in its motion to side or strike against a curved piece of brass, but he thereby caused a greater error than he corrected. Dr Hooke afterwards suspended the pendulum by a thin flexible piece of steel, the bending of which, as the pendulum swings from side to side, produces the required cycloidal motion. In 1658 Dr Hooke invented the Anchor Escapement which is still in use together with the flexible spring to the pendulum above described. Before, however, we proceed further with our historical summary of the progress of watch and clock making, it may be well to introduce here two illustrations of the watches worn by two of the most eminent Englishmen of about this period.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: Ancient Box Watch.] | | | | [Illustration: The Watch of Oliver Cromwell.] | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+

The following watch was made about 1625 by Jonn Midwall in Fleet Street, who was Warden of the Clockmakers' Co. in 1635, and died about 1638. It is one of the early examples of a fob-watch. The case is of plain silver, fitted with glass over the face, and the chain of the same metal. The family crest of Cromwell was a demi-lion holding a ring in its paw, but the Protector substituted for the ring the handle of a tilting spear, as engraved on the chain; the Cromwell arms on the reverse, and the initials O.C., certify to its genuineness. The arms as engraved and the crest are identical with those on the banner used at the Protector's funeral. The silver seals which were at one time attached to this chain are now absent, but they were a few years back in the possession of some descendants of the Cromwellian family, who allowed Sir Charles Fellows to take impressions of them. The watch, as it is here engraved, remained for upwards of a century in Holland, was there purchased by an English nobleman who presented it to his godson, and by him given to Sir C. Fellows, who believed that it was probably worn by Cromwell from 1625 until his death in 1658. In shape it reminds one of the Nuremberg egg watch. The following is an excellent example of an early watch-case of the round shape still in use.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: Early Ornamental Round Watch-case.] | | | | [Illustration: John Milton's Watch, made by William Bunting, London, | | 1631.] | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+

The history of this watch is somewhat singular. From inscriptions which appear upon it, it seems to have been made by William Bunting, (whose name is entered upon the books of the Clockmakers' Co. as elected to their court in 1645, he being then resident in Pope's Head Alley, Cornhill,) in 1631, and presented to John Milton in the same year, which was the date of the poet's leaving Christ's College, Cambridge, and taking up his residence with his father in Horton, Buckinghamshire, he being then about 23 years of age. From that time down to the early part of the present century we have no record of the watch or its possessors, but that in 1819 it was bequeathed by the last surviving member of an old family in Baltimore in the United States, who had treasured it for some generations, to some old ladies residing near London, the bequest including also a number of coins of the reigns of Charles the 1st and 2nd, some medals of Fairfax and others, as well as a few rings, but nothing of a later date. The chest which contained all these relics safely arrived in London, and not long after was, with its contents, offered for sale to an eminent chronometer-maker. The coins and medals being in an excellent state of preservation were soon disposed of at high prices, but the watch being only silver gilt, and steel-faced, was considered to be of little value, and a few shillings only were allowed as a fair price for it. It was put into a drawer in its discoloured state and there remained until 1828, when for the first time the inscription on the face of it was discovered upon its being accidentally cleaned up, and it was then presented to Sir Charles Fellows, well known for his connoisseurship in such matters, and as a collector of ancient time-pieces. The maker's name upon the inside of this watch is thus given: 'Gulielmus Bunting, London, 1631.' Sir Charles Fellows died in 1860 and bequeathed this one watch only to the nation; but his relict, Lady Fellows, who died in 1874, left the whole of the celebrated collection of ancient watches which her husband had brought together, to the British Museum.

In 1675 Tompion, under Hooke's direction, made a watch with a spiral balance for Charles II. Up to this period watches had but one hand and only pointed the hours, but the spiral pendulum spring having been applied to the balance, it regulated the oscillations with some nicety, and the minute wheel and hand were soon after added.

A watch was found upon Guido Fawkes when he was arrested for the Gunpowder Plot, which had been purchased by Percy and himself the day before 'to try conclusions' for the long and short burning of the touchwood with which he had prepared to set fire to the train of powder.

The following is one of the earliest examples we have met with of an

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: Early Watch, with double case.] | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+

It is apparently of French make, date of 1660, and is a remarkably neat and small specimen of the watches of that time.

The annexed illustration is a curious example of a watch of the date of 1580, to which a pendulum was added in 1670, and which is still capable of keeping time.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: Ancient Watch with Pendulum.] | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+

Our next illustration is another specimen of antique design and ornamentation.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: Ancient Brass Watch-case with lid protecting Dial.] | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+

In 1676 Barlow, a London clockmaker, invented some mechanism whereby a person at night might ascertain, in the dark, the hour last struck, by pulling a certain part of it, and this contrivance gave the name of _repeater_ to all time-pieces in which it was used. For this invention Barlow tried to obtain a patent, but he was opposed by Daniel Quare and the Clockmakers' Company, who said that Quare was the original inventor. The question was tried by James II., and the decision given in favour of Quare. The following memorandum was entered upon the books of the Company with reference thereto. '1688, Sep. 29.--Be it remembered that in pursuance of the order of the Court of the 8th day of February, 1687-8, and according to the order of the Court of the 5th March, 1687-8, the patent endeavoured to be obtained by one Mr Edward Barlow, a priest, and to be granted to him by the king's majesty for his sole making and managing of all pulling repeating pocket-clocks and watches, he pretending to be the true and first inventor of that art and invention, was by diligence and endeavour of the Master, Wardens, and Assistants of this Company, with great charge and expense, which was borne by and out of the stock of the Company, very successfully prevented, and upon the 2nd March, 1687-8, ordered by the king in Council not to be granted.'

In 1695 Tompion invented the cylinder escapement with horizontal wheel, but this was not brought into general use until some time after, when it was much modified. It was, however, a very valuable invention, and exercised considerable influence upon the shape of subsequent watches, inasmuch as it dispensed with the vertical crown wheel, and permitted them to be made more flat and therefore more conveniently portable.