Rotary Pendulum Clocks

Transcription

© 1978 National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, Inc. Reproduction prohibited without written permission.
John
C.
Briggs
and
Rotary Pendulum Clocks
by Chorles Terwilliger
There are mor.e questions than hard
the
American rotary pendulum clock. One
would suppose that John C. Briggs,
who received the first United States
patent for the "application of the conical pendulum to timekeepers," would
be well known to horological historians, but on the contrary, references
to Briggs and his patents are seldom
found. In the nineteenth century, only
Charles S. Crossman mentions .,the
Fortunately, although research has
facts about the beginnings of
failed to uncover inJonylation about
Briggs' Iife, some of his artivities during the decade ending in 1860 are docunented in the cfficial history of Coacord.a We learn from the Histot-g thzt
"under the dir€ction of the Concord
Railroad Company, about 1852-53,
James A. Weston and John C. Briggs
made surveys for a raih"oad from Con-
Pittsfield...." (The projected
line to Pittsfield, N.H., was never
cold to
Briggs Patent Flexible Pendulum
Clock... which Mr. John C. Briggs
built.)
A few years later, on October
had patented in 1855,"1
As Dr. Hugh Grant Rowell oncre
"It is, as you know, very di.fficult
to trace out these patentees and even
some makers. These fellows were seldom of much loeal consequence aad are
in local
the main streets on Concord, t'then
counter-marched in a.lternate lines in
State House Park" in a defirons,tration
of Republican strength. At the same
time, Mrs. John C. Briggs was treasur"er of the Ladies' Kansas Aid Society, "established .[or procuring sup-
histories.
They failed to advertise much and
left
few traces."z In the case of Briggs,
Dr, Rowell is partly right"
Although John C. Briggs is shown as
a resident of "Concord, in the county
of Merrfunack, the Stat€ of New
Hampshire," in the applications for
his patents, no reference to him can
plies of clothing arrd sther necessaries
for the relitrf of Free State emigrants."
When a new high schooi was needed
Concord in 1858, John C. Briggs
served on the building committee, In
1859, Briggs was president of the
Common Council of Concord a.rd representative of Ward 4.
The same year, 1859, the City Council authorized Briggs and four others
to purchase land for a cernetery. fn
1860, the ground was surveyed. and
in
ibe
found in New Hampshire vital records, nor in the various biogtaphical
or genealogical materials in ttre New
Itrampshire Historical Society. Two
genealogi,es of the Briggs farnily list
no John Briggs identifiable as the
John C. Briggs who lived
in the 1850s.3
in
23,
1856, John C. Briggs was chief marshal, witJr sixty marshals and assistants, in charge of the Concord portion
of a procession tlat marched through
said,
rarely -nrentioned
(NY)
Concord
oq
spending a large part of their time
thinking about clocks.
Is it too fancifu.l to imagine that one
laid out by John C. Briggs, "whose
eminent ability as a civil engineer,"
in the words ot the Cemetery Committee, r'was fully equalled by his skill
and taste as a landscape gardener."
The consecration of the cemetery was
held in July 1860, and by vote of those
day when surveyor Briggs was setting
up his transit, as he had done hun-
of times before, he was suddenly
bemused by the rotation of the plumb
dr.eds
present was named Blossom Hill
a pendubob, and saw a pendulum
- an obserlum that rotated? Just such
Cemetery.
vation had inspired Galileo, as he
watched a lamp swinging back and
forth in the cathedral at Pisa, to envision the principle of the oscillating
After the events of 1860, Briggs is
not mentioned again in the Histo'rE.
The Concord ciby directory, printed
every four years, lists him in its 1856
edition as a "civil engineer, boarding
at the Phmix Hotel," and as living at
pendulum.
A
no
best of all, it would be silent
more noisy ticking. Submitting- only
the simplest drawings and text, Briggs
applied for and received a patent for
the "application of the conical pendulum to timekeepers" on Aug'ust 21,
1855 ( Figure 1).
Perhaps Briggs tried to build a
model incorporating the ideas he had
outlined in his patent application. If
he did, he must have had difficulties,
as a second patent, for a "mode of
regrrlating the conical pendulum for
tirnekeepers," was issued to him July
15, 1856 ( Figure 2).
Long before Briggs made his appeararce in Concord, a now-famous
affairs during his residence in Concord. No shred of evidence has appear"ed to link him with timepieces.
However, clockmaking was in the air
in New England in the ninet€enth
cen-
tury, and Concord itself hsd a rich
tradition in the considerable output of
the Chandlers and Levi and Abel
Hutchins; it is obyious from developments
in
clockmaking
in
Connectieut
during the century that hundreds of
people in the New England states were
J. C
clock with a rotating pendulum
would be new, different, eye-catching,
an innovation in clockm,aking, and,
Spring and Washington Streets in the
1860 edition, but has no listing for
John C, Briggs in its 1864 edition.
So we know that Briggs was a surveyor and civil engineer with a talent
for landscape gardening, and that he
was a,ctive irr polibical and community
BRI6GS.
Mode of ReguhlinB Clocks,
l{o. 11451.
&c, by Pemduluns
Patarted Aug.
Fig.
I
Drowing in John C. Briggs' August 21. 1855, Pdlent
100
A,|855.
J. C.
BRIGGS.
Regulaling Pendulum,
No, 15,356.
Prtent?d.luly l5s l85E
J'49 2.
E&'5'
'c
Fig.2
Drowing in John C. Briggs'July 15, 1856, po'ent
clockmaker, Major Timothy Chandler,
had established his business in the
town. An advertis€ment of Major
Chandler's first appear.ed in the Concord. Herald, in 1791 :
. . . warranted eight day Clocks,
i'r'ith enamelled, moon, or plain
Simiiar advertisements continued to
appear from time to time for almost
four decades.
In 1829, his son, Abiel, joined Major
Timothy briefly, and after his father's
retirement, Abiel Chaa'dler continued
for a few years as a clockrnaker, but
the flood o-[ machine-made inexpensive Connecticut clocks made clockmaking in the old handcrafted way
more and mo "e unprofitable. Major
faces, time pieces of various kinds
. . . Clocks and Watches clea,ned
and repaired . . . and all kinds of
Gold and Silver Smith work, done
with regular dispatch.
Timothy, as early zs 1792, ha.d adr"er-
101
tised surveyors' compasses, and later
quadrants, dividers, protraetors arrd
parailel rulers were added; rn 1844,
Abiel Ch,andler adv€rtised that he was
a "Philosophical Instrument Maker,,,
manufacturing "surveyor's compasses
of all kinds
surveyor's chains,
plotting scales, protractors, etc.,' a,nd
also that he repaired surveyor's instruments "at short notice and guaranteed
to give satisfaction." Two surveyor's
compasses made by Abiel Chandler are
in the collection of the Ne.nr Hampshire flistorical Sociel,y. Abiel was alio
interested in gardening ard horticul-
ture and later fur life was a cosrespotldent for agricultural papers, including
the agricultural deparknent of the
Concord Monito'r.
Considering Abiel Chandler's activities and interests, it is not surprising
to find that John C. Briggs consulted
hfun about the practical use of his pat-
for the conical pendulum. Ctrandler was well-known in Concord as a
clocbnaker and instrument makerl
ents
Briggs may have purchased surveyor's
instruments from him
or Abiel may
- hstruments.
have lepaired Briggs'
During their dealiags, the landscape
gardener and the horticulturist
could also have discussed ga.rdening
and plantings, even possibilities for
Blossom Hill Cemetery. fn any event,
two must have discussed clocks, as
Crossrna,n says trhat Abiel Chandler
th.e
"developed the Briggs Clock in 1858
and 1859,"r
No working models, d rawings, or
papers have survived to shed light on
the period of experimentation, but in
the end, Chandler was unable to de-
ROTARY.
Fig. 3 Welch "Rotorf
Adoms Aflo6
vise a rotary penduh'm clock that
would function, Crossman says, ..In
practice it was found that the clock
stopped very easily if jarred, and
Chandler gave up the idea of rnakimg
them to 'any extent."6
So ends all that is known of the
early development of Briggs' idea and,
at the
same time, any documentation
about John C. Briggs. He fades from
the picturre as quietly as he had entered it, leaving nothi'ng be,hind except
the fact that he had obtajned two pat-
ents concerning the application and
regulation of the conical pendulum for
timekeeners.
L02
'
os shown in Asher
preceded by an earlier Welch production, Model I (Figure 4). Welch's
The Welch "Rotary"
Nothing furhher is heard about con-
Model II, the "Rotary," is shown in
tr'igure 5. For a comparison of the two
models, see Figure 6. Welch, alone in
ical pendulums in the United States
until the early 1870's, when an alticle
in an Asher & Adams Atlas on the
products of Ure E. N. Welch Manufacturing Connpany illustrated the
"Rotary," a clock using the pendulum
(Figure 3). The article states that
Welc.h makes "a specia.lty of 'Rotsxy
the field, continued to produce
clock for several years.
There is no evidence to indicate that
Briggs was in any way connected with
the manufacture of the Welch clocks,
although stamped on the top plate of
Model I is "Pat. Aug. 1855, JuIy 1856,"
indicating that Welch knew of BrigEs'
patents, or at least the dates they were
issued. The patent dates do not appear on Model II. The 1855 and 1856
patents relate only to the conical pendulum as a means of "regulating
Clocks' and . , . are the only American
makers of a reliable clock having this
escapement." Although the "Rotary"
is the first American rotary pendulum
clock that has been documented.
the
it was
Fig.4o Welch Model l- 7" high {Unless
otherwise noted, oll clocks illustroied ore
presently or were previorrsly owned by the
Fig..4b Welch Model
outhor)
103
l,
bock
Fig. 5o Welch Model ll
t04
-
7
t/a" high
Fig. 5b Welch Model ll, side ("Americon Horologist & Jeweler" phorogrophl
MODET
Position of pendulum
regulathg nut
MODEI
I
At top of bracket
Directly over spindle
Wheel and pinion train
II
Completely redesigned
Not intelohangeable
Same gear ratios
Top plate attached with
Top plate markings
Pins
Screws
PAT AUG 1855
JULY 1856
None
Die-stamped
Turned
Motion train wheels
Solid
Crossed out
Motion train bddge
Shaped
Plain
Several designs
Several designs
Terry-t11e
SPade
3,5 mm
3.8 mm
t2
6
Availa;ble
Avairlable
Pillars
Pendulum ball
Hands
Key squa.re
Number of key fingers
Nickel-plated plates
Slightly larger
Legs
Less deeply embossed
Fig.6
Moior differences belween Welch Models
106
lond
ll
Fig. 70 French conicol pendulum
whose cdse design Welch copied
clocks and
timepieces
7"
clock
high
Fig.
7b Bock view of clock shown in
in the Asher & Adams article,
;" Welch de-
Figure
where
an illustration and description of the
Welch rrAlcove" cloek, "a French invention patented by E. tr'arcot of
Paris," appears.
signed a clock and movement to make
use of the conical pendulum.
How did Welch arrive at the design
of the "Rotary," a design that was unusual in American clockmaking? The
designer must have been familiar witrh
In describing their clock, Welch did
rrot use the words "Briggs" or "conical," but referred to it only as the
"Rotary," As far as I know, the name
"The Briggs Rotary" was first used
by Jesse Coleman in his Augrrst 1946
a clock made in France, probably in
the 1850's or 1860's, shown in Figure
7. I first saw this clock in 1968 in the
science museum. Instituto e Museo di
Storia della Scienza, in Florenoe, and
article in The Amet"ican Horologist
ond, Jetpeler. No
later found it illustrated in a.n article
on conica.l pendulums in Antiquarian
manufacturer's nam€
appears on the Welch clocksl as a
matter of fact. I know of no American
rotary clock made before the 1970's
that bears a manufacturer's lame.
Hwologg.T
Subsequent efforts
to obtain information about the clock and its maker.
by inserti,ng an adveltisernent asking
for such inf,ormation in the May 19?5
issue of the bulletin published by the
Association Nationale des CollectionneurB et Amateurs d'Horlogerie Ancienne, were fruitless. I finally obtained one of, the clocks from a:t
American collector in 1976. Stamped
on the bottom plate of the movement
is a trademark with the initials AR
(Figure 8), which suggests that the
clock was made by Antoine Redier, a
well-known alocknaker. who was arctive in Paris from 1849 to the 1870's.
(For more irforrnation about Redier,
see footnote 16.)
Fig- B Tfddemork slomped on bottom o{
That Welch kept in touch with
French clock production is indir.ated
French conicol pendulum clock shown
ures 7o ond 7b
!07
in
Fig-
his first patent? Could a few trial
of a rotary pendulum clock
BROWN'S
B, O T A R,
models
Y.
il Brown's factory when it
was sold to E. N. Welch, to be found
years later, redesigned, given a Welch
have been
E. N, Welch MoveEent.
movement and called
Rotary"?
"Brown's
There arre no records showing when
E. N. Welch first produced a mtary
pendulum elock, or when production
ceased. One can approximate the years
as being the decade between 18?0 and
1890. Nox does anyone kno-r how
many clocks were made, let alone how
many of each model. The extaDt illustrations, including those for "Brotvn's
Rotary," illustrate Model
II.
Based on
the many clocks of both models I have
seen over the years, I would hazard a
guess that the production of Model II
(This Cut ts Querter the
r
size ol the
Day. Time.
Clock.)
was ten times as great as that of
Model I, but ttrrat there ar.e probably
not more than 300 or 400 of both
models in existence today.
Spring.
Brass or Nickel.
Fig.9 "Brown's Rotory" illustroted in
lhe
Americon Clock Compony's cqiolog No. 166,
Morch I878
On page 64 of the March 1878 catalog of the American Clock Company,
clock wholesalers and distributors of
E. N. Welch clocks, the same "Rotary"
drawing shown in the Asher & Adams
article appears again, but it is now
titled "Brorm's Rotary
E. N. Welch
Movmrent" ( Figure 9).- The wholesale
prices given were $2.50 for brass,
$3.50 for nickel. This advertisement
has given xise to the idea that another
in the manufacture of the clock. Some authorities
suggest that 'Brown" might have
been a typographical
error for
person was involved
"Briggs."
One interesting speculation does
arise. Jonathan Clark Brown, a clockmaker active in Bristol between 1831
and 1855 under various
(Bartholomew, Brown
firm
names
& Co., Forest-
ville Mfg. Co., Hills, Brown & Co.,
J. C. Brown & Co., Forestville Clock
Manufartory, Forestville Hardware &
Clock Co.), failed ard sold out to E. N.
Welch in 1855.s Could Briggs have
had any contact with. J. C. Brown in
the time preceding his application for
Fig. 10 Kroeber Noiseless No. I known os
the derrick or oil well clock. 20'1" high
108
Other American Rotaries
In the 1880's, another rotary was
harketed by the F. Kroeber Clock
Company of New York, en lepreneurs
and distributors of clocks made by
leading American and some foreign
manufacturer-s. These clocks were
available in six different models. The
Noiscless Hotary No. J is known as the
"derrick" or "oil well" clock because it
resembles oil rvell derricks in use at
the time. The other Nofseless Rota,ries,
Models 2 through 6, have the same
statue of a draped female figure from
t'hose upheld hand the pendulum
hangs, but the cases on which the figures stand differ.e Figures 10 through
12 iliustrate Kroeber Noiseless
Rotaries.
All Kroe-ber models have this same
movement, patent€d by Gilbert H.
Blakesley of Bristol, Connec,ticut on
June 18, l8?8 (Figure 13). This is another mystery, as Blakesley never
made a clock in his life, according to
the late Edward Ingraha"m of Bristol,
',vho kn€w Blakesley and had discussed
the matter wit*r two of Blakesley's
friends and a rnan who had been em-
ployed in Blekesley's plant for many
years.lo On the contrary, he manufac-
Fig. 12 Kroeber Noiseless No. 6
hrgh {Americon Clock & Wolch Museuml
21"
lured a "hair crimper" and various
small items, such as arm bands, at his
Blakesley Novelty Company in Bristol.
The patent is another indication,
though, that hundreds of people in
New England
in the nineteenth cen-
tury were thinking about clocks.
It has been suggested that the
Noiseless Rotaries were made for
Kroeber by either the William L. Gil-
bert Clock
Company in Winstead,
Connecticut, or by E. N. Welch. The
latter would seem to be more logical,
as Welch had had considerable experi-
in manufacturing rotary pendulum clocks.
ence
Kroeber rotaxies a,re rare, In
I have seen only a
few: several derricks, a Noiseless
Rotary No. 5, and the No. 6 in the
twenty-five years,
Fig. I I Kroeber Noiseless No. 5
high
American Clock & Watch Museum in
Bristol shown in Figure 12. Because
of tle Kroeber firm's dealings with
foreign manufacturers, Kroeber de-
-
signers were fa.miliar witft conical
pendulum clocks being made in
2l Vr"
109
o.
ilo.2O5,O9t.
l,
ELAf,ESIET,
0lool.
Pelcnlrd Iqnc lE. 1878.
ffiffi
Fig. 13 Drowing in Gilbert H. Blokesleys June 18, 1878, pdlenf
110
scientists and clockmakers harl been
making intermittent attempts to carry
out the principle of such a pendulum
for almost four hundred yeanrs, although he ref,ers to Foucault in the
application for his second patent: ". . .
circulating pendulums having
the
maintaining power applied at the top,
as Foucault's. .
In
first
.."
1587, Jost Boedecker "was the
to conceive a coltinuously revolv-
ing mectranical appliance oparated by
weights for the measurement of time.
He devised a rotating star as a regulator for the cathedraL clock in Osna-
bruck."l1 This clock, which not sur-
prisingly has disappeared, is described
on page 304
of Alfred Ungerer's Zes
in Paris
Ho,rloges il'Edi.f ice, published
in 1926. A line drawiag showing how
the movement might have been constructed is shown in Figule 15.
Almost a century later, Christiaan
Huygens, following his application of
the oscillating pendulum to a clock in
1656, devised
Fig. l4 The Briggs Roidry Pendulum Clock,
lhe idea o-[ a timepiece
with a conical
pendulum, probably
about 16)9, and made furl,her experiments with clocks using the pendulum
o Horolovor reproduclion boseC on the Welch
Model ll
Franee. The shape of a rctar"y or conical pendulum clock is prede.ternined
by the necessity for an overhead sup-
port fi:om w'hich to suspend the pendulum. Welch models used a simnle
curved strip o-f metal originating at
the back of the dial: almost alt of the
larger French conical pendulum elocks
use the woman's figur.e with raised
arm, a.s do all Kroeber clocks excent
the unique derrick*model.
Again there is a lapse, and a rather
lengthy one, until 19?5, when Clock
Trade Enterprises of Bronxwille, Neu'
York, introduced the Briggs Rotary
Pendulum Clock, a reproduction of
the Welch Dlodel II (Figure 14). The
reproduction maintains the general
appearance and operation of the 30hour oliginal, but is slightly larger
because
of its S-day movemeni.
Notes on the Hi8tory of the
Conical Pendulum Clock
It is doubtful that
John C. Briggs,
when he was applying
for patents
Fig l5 Drowing of
on
the application of the conical pendulum to timekeep€rs, was a,ware that
l587
movement o{ Boedecker
Osnobruck clock (Deulsche lJhrmocher
Zeilung)
111
in the years 1666-1668.r, A drau'ing
of Huygens' pendulum appears on
page 144 of P'auI M. Chamberlain's
The clock has a fascinating his-
tory. It is named "Corfu" because
the onyx used in its construction
was mined on the Greek island of
Corfu. (It has also been called
the "Cor"nu" clock since its base
was crafted by Eugene Cornu on
the Boulevard des ltaliens 24,
It's About Time; this is probably the
same drawing preserved in Leidm,
Holland, referred to in the description
of a Kroeber derrick clock displayed
in the Smithsonian Institution.
In England, Dr. Robert Hooke ex-
Paris.)
perimented with all sorts of p€ndulums, "both vertical and conical"; the
Minutes of the Royal Society contain
The timepiece, which'stands
the Paris Exposition of 1867. After the fair closed, the clock was
shown throughout the great art
capitals of Europe. In 1869, Mr.
Alexander T. Stewart, fomer
reports of several of these experiments
in 1666 and 1667.13
There is litttre information about the
use of the conical pendulum in the
eighteenth century, but the idea had
a recurring attraction for horologists
and the second half of the ni,neteenfh
century saw an upsurge of activity,
particularly in France, where clockmakers and manufacturners prcduced
a Iarge number of conical pendulum
clocks, ranging from ela,borate exhibition pieces to miniature alarrn clocks.
chaiman of the honorary comnis-
sion sent
the clock for
He placed the one-andone-half ton instrument in the
hallway of his New York City
tion,
in Baillie
residence.
when
piece was acquired
Powers
as a
of
by
Patrick
Rochester, Ne,w York.
Mr. Lambert
[whose house in
Paterson later became tlre Society's headquartersl obtained the
Paris.r5
clock from the Powers estate.
Even at a cursory glance, one
is inclined to agree that t,l.e timepiece is a truly unique art object.
Two ormolu dials are set in the
clock's front; one gives the time
iman, 1855" and "Comparateur chrona pendule conique par
Rediert 1859."16 Later in the century,
Louis Moinet, who worked with Breguet, illustrated two conical pendulum
ometriquc
and the other marks the day of
the month and quarterly moon
periods. The opposite side has two
similar dials indicating baromet-
in his
book, Nouaeau Traite
General d'Horlogenie, published in
in
in Stewart's possession.) At
moved the clock to his department
store, which was eventua-lly sold
to John Wanamaker. Wanamaker
placed this rare olock near tle
front entrance on the main floor
of his famous New York stole.
Somel,ime a-fter"ward, the time-
"Horloge a pendule conique par Ball-
Pa-ris
contemporary pho-
an unknown date, Stewart re-
There are two conical pendulum wall
clocks on display in the Conservatoire
National des Arts et Metiers in Paris:
clocks
(A
tograph reveals that the bronze
goddess was brilliantly polished
nineteenth oentury clockma,ker of
great repute, was the first to exhibit
a conical pendulum clock in
purchased
910,000,
conical pendulum clocks were made
after 1850, the Manfrankisches Museum in Wurzburg has e, long case
clock wiLh conical pendulum signed
Caspar Bollerman, c. 1815. The c,lock
is a quarter-hour repeater, with a
"horizontal impulse rod that p€rmits
Jean Wagner, listed
by the United States
Government to the Paris Exposi-
European Conical Pendulum Clocks
Although the majority of European
tadial displacements."r+
13
feet, 6 inchcs, was exhibited at
ric
changes and time
in
major
cities actoss rhe globe. Tn addi-
1875.
tion, the clock is fitted \Fith
nhei t and Cmtigtade
In this country, a clock exhibited by
the Passaic County Historical Society
at its hoadquarters and museum, Lambert Castle in Paterson, N,J., is shown
in Figure 16. The guide to the museum gives the following information:
F ah re
therrnometers.
On top of the base is a statue
by the French sculptor, Alb€rt
Ernest Carrier-Belleuse (L824-
7L2
Article continues here.

Rotary Pendulum Clocks

Transcription

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