Vulliamy Antique Bracket Clock

Hello, here we are again, like Sisyphus rolling his boulder. It's Tim Newsome here with Mark Taylor, the master clockmaker at the Bournemouth Clock Shop. Hello. And we have here a clock that I know you love, by Justin Guglielmi. Can you tell us something about the Guglielmi family and this maker and this clock? Yeah, I'd love to. When we discuss the Guglielmi family, we're talking about really several generations and a clan of very, very good clockmakers. A large portion of the items they made were purchased and contained in some of the world's finest palaces around Europe, the greatest homes. But of course, Justin Guglielmi, the first, who was the Swiss watchmaker, started everything. It all began with this now. This is the one that has to be corrected. This is really the pinnacle of the kind of clockmaking that you can get of that period. The period is about 1770. The quality is reflected in just the sheer appearance of this item. I mean, look closely at that dial. I can see it's very small. Not only is it small, it's because it's still made by hand. It didn't involve any intervention by machines. It's castings. The fine matting to the centre was carried out by hand. The delicacy of that. Each hand is made from one piece of steel and finely pierced out and carved. And these two subsidiary dials? On the left is what's called a rise and fall regulation dial with a hand that you adjusted so that you didn't have to turn the clock around and alter the pendulum for the timekeeping. You could make it gain or lose simply by adjusting that hand with the micrometer settings which actually altered the pendulum length via the suspension and brass chops. Very clever. The one on the right, of course, is your standard, although it's very small, strike silent dial. So by moving the hand you could instantly put the clock on to silent so that if you were busy listening to somebody or you needed silence or in fact you were sleeping and it was by your bedside the clock would keep running but would not strike. Unless, of course, you pulled on the repeat card to the side here and then it would strike the last hour on the bell. Well, a wonderful dial. Can we look around the rest of the clock? Oh, I'd love to show you. The case is finished beautifully on all four edges. The back door being moulded. You can see through these large break-out panels in the side the double fusee movement at the highest standard. Five pillar, of course. Quarter frets in both doors. And if you open the rear door with nicely moulded edges you can see really the sheer beauty of that back plate all hand engraved. Now it was push engraved for the finest lines which meant you had a graver and without slipping you had to dig into the metal and scoop it around following a design applied by pencil or ink pen and then for the large and deeper areas of the engraving you literally used a graver like a hammer and chisel. What is this, Mark? Well, that wonderful little device. To transport the clock one usually parts the pendulum especially with a suspension so it wouldn't clatter about and cause damage. So this is a locking device. But rather than just a nut that locks the pendulum or a spring we have here this little weighted block that was swung up into position. That little knob there was unscrewed. The pendulum rod was placed in the groove and then the nut tightened again. And that would hold it firm. Of course, when you unlock the pendulum you then just push that down out of the way and then you could start the clock running with its verge escapement. A standard verge escapement, this? It is a standard verge escapement except it has a suspension on it. We have what's called a detached pendulum which of course eliminates the error that you get in the standard verge escapement. So the timekeeping on this should be quite accurate. Mark, I've got one further question for you. Where did you get a clock like this? Where did humble old me get a clock like this? Well, actually it's an interesting story. I became friendly 30 years ago with a local watchmaker in Bournemouth who'd been in the RAF during the war, the Second World War and I think he actually spent his DMOG money and bought this for investment just after the war. He then came, when he eventually retired as a very, very old man, he then called me over because we were friends and offered this clock to me and I bought it from him. He's since died, but to my knowledge this has been in Bournemouth and not on the market since around 1945, 1946. Well that's a lovely story and it's clearly worthwhile devoting a special programme to this clock. Next time perhaps we'll look at some more bracket clocks? I think we must do because it's a fascinating subject and I've said before that there's so many variants and variables, it's mind-boggling. So we hope to see you next time. Thank you, Tim.