Joseph Smith Clockmaker of Barthomley and Chester

Joseph Smith ‘s Domestic Clocks made in Chester 8
Joseph Smith two train table clock with alarm and five minute repeat
From the Bonhams’ catalogue ‘Fine Clocks’ auction, 11 July 2018.
Lot 59 A FINE AND RARE MID 18TH CENTURY FIVE-MINUTE REPEATING MAHOG-
ANY TABLE CLOCK WITH ALARM, MOON PHASE INDICATION AND EXHIBITION
PROVENANCE
Joseph Smith, Chester.
The bold handle over a stepped moulded caddy with gadrooned border over outset
corners with reeded and carved Corinthian columns raised on carved ogee bases,
each side with a hinged and lockable glazed door to access the movement, the 9.75
inch arched brass dial with flowing foliate scroll engraved border framing the
painted rolling moonphase, the rococo spandrels enclosing the silvered Roman and
Arabic chapter ring with finely matted centre with alarm setting disc and chamfered
date aperture, signed ‘Jos: Smith, CHESTER’ between V and VII, a lever visible in the
mask by IX which sets the alarm (and in doing so, silences the hourly strike), the
twin gut fusee movement with five turned finned pillars screwed through the backplate
and pinned to the front, now converted to anchor escapement, with
countwheel strike acting on a single bell, the alarm and repeat using three further
hammers and two smaller bells, 58cms (23ins) high.
Exhibited: ‘Time & Place: English Country Clocks, 1600-1840’, an exhibition by The
Antiquarian Horological Society at The Museum of the History of Science, University
of Oxford, 25 November 2006 - 15 April 2007. Exhibit number 43.
This imposing and innovative provincial clock was one of 68 exhibits selected to
show the best of provincial horology over nearly two and a half centuries. Illustrated
over four pages, the clock is described in the exhibition catalogue. The alarm
does not have a separate power source and so when it sounds, it strikes the number
of ‘lost hours’ i.e., those that would have struck since the alarm was set. This action
ingeniously brings the countwheel back into synchronization. Quarter repeating
clocks were not uncommon in the mid 18th century, but five-minute repeating examples
are extremely rare.