The Summers Tompion no.458, circa 1707

Exhibit No.7

19 inches (total height with bracket 28½ inches)

The Phase 3 case, ebony-veneered onto an oak carcass, with gilt-brass acanthus scroll handle to the inverted bell top, flanked by re-instated multi-piece gilt-brass finials. The sides have wooden frets above glazed apertures, with an inset glazed door to the rear. The top rail of the front door is inset with a gilt-brass cherub and lambrequin sound fret with gilt foliate cartouche escutcheons to the side stiles, and is stamped 458 to the door sill, both doors with later  felt strips to keep out dust. The whole case is raised on conforming ebony base mouldings and resting on re-instated gilt-brass gadrooned feet.

The Bracket

The contemporary early 18th Century wall bracket, ebony and fruitwood veneered onto an oak carcass, and in two sections: the flat-top wall-mounted bracket with hidden rear oak supports and side runners underneath; the forward-sliding inverted bell section leading down to fine acanthus carving with a matching moulded section below.

The 7¼ by 8¼ inch brass Phase 2 dial has retained the original fire-gilding, and is signed TOMPION + BANGER LONDON amongst foliage, executed by Graver 195, and flanked by subsidiary silvered rings for strike/silent and pendulum regulation. The main silvered chapter ring has Roman hours with typical sword-hilt half-hour markers, while the Arabic minutes have cross half-quarter markers outside their division ring, all indicated by original delicately pierced and shaped blued-steel hands. The finely-matted centre has a mock-pendulum aperture, the lower finely-cast Minerva mask-and-foliage spandrels are double-screwed, the upper spandrels are matching quarter versions. The dial is fixed to the frontplate by three latched dial feet.

The substantial movement with 5 7⁄16 by 6⅞ inch plates is fixed by seven finned baluster pillars, all latched, with twin fusees and spring barrels. The going train has a pivoted verge escapement with brass rod lenticular pendulum, spring-suspended from the regulation bar atop the plates with pinion adjustment through the dial. The striking train sounds the hours on the larger bell and the quarter-repeat operates on Tompion’s own fail-safe system with double-cocked interlocking blued-steel levers that may be pulled from either side of the case. The backplate was executed by Graver 195 and is profusely engraved with scrolls and foliage within a wheatear border and signed in the lower centre Tompion & Banger London within a cartouche flanked by caryatids, and punch-numbered 458 at the base. The movement is secured in the case by means of two chamfered and engraved brackets, and steel bolts into the base pillars.

Sir Geoffrey Summers Bt., Flintshire, purchased in 1952;

Private collection, Mystic, CT, USA;

Christie’s, 9th July 2015, lot 156;

Private collection, UK.

Noel Hill, Early British Clocks, Connoisseur booklet, 1948;

Antique Collector, February 1952, Lee advert;

Hawarden Bridge Catalogue, 1964;

Dawson, Drover & Parkes, Early English Clocks, 1982, pl.716.

Height 19 inches; width 11 inches; depth 6¾ inches

1948, The Antique Dealers Fair, Grosvenor House, by RA Lee;

1964, The Boardroom, Hawarden Bridge Steelworks, Shotton, Flintshire.

Sir Geoffrey Summers Bt. was the last generation of the steel producers, John Summers & Co. Founded in the mid 19th century, by 1920 the family also owned the 400 acre steelworks at Shelton Bar in Stoke-on-Trent and, amongst other products, was the largest manufacturer of galvanized steel in the country. In 1964, Sir Geoffrey exhibited his clocks for the Antiquarian Horological Society. The company’s various sites had started to be nationalised in 1951; the last, at Hawarden Bridge, survived in private ownership until 1976.