| Height | 6 feet 3 inches (1900 mm) |
| Case | The later case of simplified architectural form, veneered in ebony onto an oak carcass, and constructed from some old elements. The rising hood with architectural mouldings and triangular pediment with slopes continuing to the back, resting on a plain frieze above the dial aperture framed by raised mouldings, the hood sides with large similarly framed apertures. The hood resting on a convex throat moulding above a rectangular raised triple-panelled trunk door mounted straight to the trunk sides, which have matching raised veneer panels. The plain ebony veneered plinth surmounted by an overhanging cavetto/ovolo moulding and raised on four turned bun feet. |
| Dial | The 8½ inch (216 mm) square brass dial, retaining much of its original mercury fire-gilding and with finely engraved flower and vegetable engraved corner spandrels, all framed by a single line, interrupted along the lower edge by the signature Joseph Knibb, Oxon Fecit. The slim silvered brass chapter ring with internal quarter division ring inside Roman hours and stylised fleur-de-lys half-hour marks, the outer Arabic minutes, engraved for every 5 inside the division ring, with well-pierced and sculpted blued steel hands. The very finely matted centre with a single shuttered winding hole and slender Arabic seconds ring, divided for every 10, but unusually inscribed by 5 between: 5, 10, 5, 20, 5, 30, 5 etc. The dial attached to the frontplate with four latched feet. |
| Movement | The tall rectangular movement with six knopped and finned pillars, latched to the frontplate (one broken) with the single going train planted vertically in-line and with bolt-and-shutter maintaining power. The original escape-wheel, now with re-cut conventional teeth, and early bow-shaped anchor pallets with a corresponding access hole in the backplate, and held by a typical Knibb-shaped backcock, the pallet arbor with unusual but not unprecedented squared-on and pinned brass pendulum crutch to the spring suspended brass rod pendulum with lenticular bob and rating nut. The movement resting on blocks with taper pins in the lower pillars and secured by a later bracket to the backboard. |
| Duration | 8 days |
| Provenance | Private collection USA, until sold 2015 for £60,000; |
| Comparative Literature | RA Lee, The Knibb Family, Clockmakers, 1964; |
| Literature | Garnier & Hollis, Innovation & Collaboration, 2018, (illus.) p.244-5 |
| Exhibited | 2018, London, Innovation & Collaboration, exhibit no.62 |
Exhibit № 14. Joseph Knibb, Oxford, Circa 1670
An interesting and important Charles II longcase timepiece movement with early anchor escapement in a later ebonised case
£65,000
Joseph Knibb (1640-1711), of Oxford and London, was baptised on 2nd February 1640, the fifth son of Thomas Knibb, yeoman of Claydon, Oxfordshire. No record of any official apprenticeship has been traced but it is thought that he learnt his trade from his cousin Samuel Knibb in Newport Pagnell. On completing his training, perhaps circa 1662, Joseph started a business in Oxford, which at this time offered prospects of good trade and patronage, but not without problems. He settled in St Clement’s, outside the City Liberties, and it is known he was there because of a petition drawn up by the freemen smiths and watchmakers, who objected to his presence as a foreigner.
By 1665, Joseph had moved to Holywell Street, Oxford and was now within the City Liberties, but still resented by the Oxford freemen. They had already expressed their displeasure of trade being conducted by a foreigner in a petition to the king and Joseph was forced to apply for the Freedom of the City. On 1st February 1667 the mayor, William Bayley, proposed his admission but it was postponed until the next council meeting by which time the smiths and watchmakers had drawn up a petition to oppose him and freedom was refused.
Joseph was living as a subtenant in a university house and his premises in Holywell Street were a scheduled university shop. During this period there was an on-going conflict between city and university over their respective privileges, one of which allowed the university to employ tradesman within the liberties but outside city jurisdiction, and an entry in the Matriculations Register for 24th August 1667 describes Knibb as a Gardener of Trinity College. Another petition to the City Council was drawn up almost immediately, this time by the Clockmakers and Watchmakers of the City, and on 29th October 1667 the council resolved that … Knibb and any others who offended were to be suppressed. By the beginning of the following year, 1668, Joseph had offered the council a compromise, suggesting that he withdraw his university tradesman’s privilege so that he could be made a freeman of the City upon payment of a fine. The solution was accepted and Joseph paid his admission ‘fine’ of 20 nobles, and a leather bucket. By then, Joseph’s business was prospering and the council probably decided it would be better to have him under their authority rather than offend the university again by expelling one of its tradesmen.
The year 1669 was probably Joseph’s last in Oxford and one of major importance, because it was during this year that he carried out two important turret clock commissions. The first concerned the conversion to pendulum of the foliot-controlled turret clock belonging to St Mary the Virgin, the University Church, and the accounts for the period Sept. 1669 to Sept. 1670 include the entry Item to Mr Knibb for altering ye Univ’sity clock to a Pendulum £6: 7s: 0d. Although that clock no longer survives, Joseph would likely have been testing the escapement on other domestic clocks and this example, with two other London clocks referenced below, all share an unusual anchor format. By the time he installed the Wadham College clock by Michaelmas 1670, he was using a fully-formed anchor escapement, and the Wadham clock (History of Science Museum Oxford, inv. no.42866) is currently the earliest datable example that can be shown to have been designed to incorporate an anchor escapement, and it is on the basis of these references that Joseph has been credited with being involved in its development.
Robert Hooke laid claim to the invention, while John Smith writing in 1694 in Horological Dialogues says … that eminent and well-known Artist Mr. William Clement, had at last the good Fortune to give it the finishing Stroke, he being indeed the real Contriver of that curious kind of long Pendulum, which is at this Day so universally in use among us. Thus the invention of the anchor escapement has been variously attributed to Hooke and Clement, as well as Joseph Knibb and, more recently, Ahasuerus Fromanteel, but in reality it was most likely a combination of efforts and developments by all of these. Leaving aside the question of priority there is little doubt that Knibb contributed to the development of the anchor escapement, and that it took place during 1669/70, while he was in Oxford rather than London. But equally it must be considered that he was already visiting his cousin’s workshop in London, and so formed part of the circle of clockmakers associated with the Fromanteels.
There is evidence that he may have taken some of his Oxford ‘experimental’ anchor clocks to London; two London signed longcases survive (Moyse’s Hall Museum no.1992.1.8 and Phillips sale in 1987) whose anchor pallets work with an escape-wheel that is more akin to a normal train wheel and nothing like what we now accept as the conventional form of escape-wheel, that the Wadham clock has. Although the escape-wheel of this clock has now been re-cut to a ‘conventional’ tooth pattern, it appears that it was originally of similar format to these two London signed examples, and all three share similar bow-shaped pallets to those seen here. In contrast to the other examples this clock is signed for Oxford, which in itself suggests that it is likely to have been finished earlier, and with its unusual anchor and atypically inscribed, possibly ‘pre-conventional’, seconds ring, it could be one of the earliest surviving clocks with an anchor escapement by Joseph Knibb, possibly made before he fitted the Wadham escapement in 1670.
It is believed that Samuel Knibb died in about 1670, and Joseph had certainly arrived in London by January 1671, when he was made a free brother of the Clockmaker’s Company. It is tempting to suggest that he had hurried to the city, not only to take advantage of Samuel’s goodwill, but also to capitalise on this, his newly introduced form of anchor escapement.
Product Description
Joseph Knibb (1640-1711), of Oxford and London, was baptised on 2nd February 1640, the fifth son of Thomas Knibb, yeoman of Claydon, Oxfordshire. No record of any official apprenticeship has been traced but it is thought that he learnt his trade from his cousin Samuel Knibb in Newport Pagnell. On completing his training, perhaps circa 1662, Joseph started a business in Oxford, which at this time offered prospects of good trade and patronage, but not without problems. He settled in St Clement’s, outside the City Liberties, and it is known he was there because of a petition drawn up by the freemen smiths and watchmakers, who objected to his presence as a foreigner.
By 1665, Joseph had moved to Holywell Street, Oxford and was now within the City Liberties, but still resented by the Oxford freemen. They had already expressed their displeasure of trade being conducted by a foreigner in a petition to the king and Joseph was forced to apply for the Freedom of the City. On 1st February 1667 the mayor, William Bayley, proposed his admission but it was postponed until the next council meeting by which time the smiths and watchmakers had drawn up a petition to oppose him and freedom was refused.
Joseph was living as a subtenant in a university house and his premises in Holywell Street were a scheduled university shop. During this period there was an on-going conflict between city and university over their respective privileges, one of which allowed the university to employ tradesman within the liberties but outside city jurisdiction, and an entry in the Matriculations Register for 24th August 1667 describes Knibb as a Gardener of Trinity College. Another petition to the City Council was drawn up almost immediately, this time by the Clockmakers and Watchmakers of the City, and on 29th October 1667 the council resolved that … Knibb and any others who offended were to be suppressed. By the beginning of the following year, 1668, Joseph had offered the council a compromise, suggesting that he withdraw his university tradesman’s privilege so that he could be made a freeman of the City upon payment of a fine. The solution was accepted and Joseph paid his admission ‘fine’ of 20 nobles, and a leather bucket. By then, Joseph’s business was prospering and the council probably decided it would be better to have him under their authority rather than offend the university again by expelling one of its tradesmen.
The year 1669 was probably Joseph’s last in Oxford and one of major importance, because it was during this year that he carried out two important turret clock commissions. The first concerned the conversion to pendulum of the foliot-controlled turret clock belonging to St Mary the Virgin, the University Church, and the accounts for the period Sept. 1669 to Sept. 1670 include the entry Item to Mr Knibb for altering ye Univ’sity clock to a Pendulum £6: 7s: 0d. Although that clock no longer survives, Joseph would likely have been testing the escapement on other domestic clocks and this example, with two other London clocks referenced below, all share an unusual anchor format. By the time he installed the Wadham College clock by Michaelmas 1670, he was using a fully-formed anchor escapement, and the Wadham clock (History of Science Museum Oxford, inv. no.42866) is currently the earliest datable example that can be shown to have been designed to incorporate an anchor escapement, and it is on the basis of these references that Joseph has been credited with being involved in its development.
Robert Hooke laid claim to the invention, while John Smith writing in 1694 in Horological Dialogues says … that eminent and well-known Artist Mr. William Clement, had at last the good Fortune to give it the finishing Stroke, he being indeed the real Contriver of that curious kind of long Pendulum, which is at this Day so universally in use among us. Thus the invention of the anchor escapement has been variously attributed to Hooke and Clement, as well as Joseph Knibb and, more recently, Ahasuerus Fromanteel, but in reality it was most likely a combination of efforts and developments by all of these. Leaving aside the question of priority there is little doubt that Knibb contributed to the development of the anchor escapement, and that it took place during 1669/70, while he was in Oxford rather than London. But equally it must be considered that he was already visiting his cousin’s workshop in London, and so formed part of the circle of clockmakers associated with the Fromanteels.
There is evidence that he may have taken some of his Oxford ‘experimental’ anchor clocks to London; two London signed longcases survive (Moyse’s Hall Museum no.1992.1.8 and Phillips sale in 1987) whose anchor pallets work with an escape-wheel that is more akin to a normal train wheel and nothing like what we now accept as the conventional form of escape-wheel, that the Wadham clock has. Although the escape-wheel of this clock has now been re-cut to a ‘conventional’ tooth pattern, it appears that it was originally of similar format to these two London signed examples, and all three share similar bow-shaped pallets to those seen here. In contrast to the other examples this clock is signed for Oxford, which in itself suggests that it is likely to have been finished earlier, and with its unusual anchor and atypically inscribed, possibly ‘pre-conventional’, seconds ring, it could be one of the earliest surviving clocks with an anchor escapement by Joseph Knibb, possibly made before he fitted the Wadham escapement in 1670.
It is believed that Samuel Knibb died in about 1670, and Joseph had certainly arrived in London by January 1671, when he was made a free brother of the Clockmaker’s Company. It is tempting to suggest that he had hurried to the city, not only to take advantage of Samuel’s goodwill, but also to capitalise on this, his newly introduced form of anchor escapement.
Additional information
| Dimensions | 5827373 cm |
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