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Traditional Peculiarities: Winding the Mostyn Tompion Clock at the British Museum.

In this time of the hyperbol and the sound bite, watch companies make a great deal of the length of time between winding. Despite advances in metallurgy and technology, CAD design, it is difficult to believe that over 300 years ago Thomas Tompion, clockmaker to his Majesty the King, was able to design and make a year running table clock. Thomas Tompion made the clock for King William III (1689-1702) and it is believed to have been commissioned in 1689, the year of the coronation of William and Queen Mary for the royal bedchamber. Not sure what the clock was doing in the royal bedchamber, but perhaps it was such an object of pride and possession, that the royal couple wished it for themselves!



On the King's death, the clock was part of the legacy of 'the contents of the King's bedchamber' which passed to Henry Sydney, Earl of Romney, who was Gentleman of the Bedchamber and Groom of the Stole. Henry Sydney died without an heir, and it then passed by descent, through various hands to the fifth Lord Mostyn.

The clock is a spectacular work by Britain's most celebrated clockmaker at the height of his powers. He was the most celebrated clockmaker at the centre of the watch and clockmaking world. It was the technological marvel of the age. The case is made of ebony veneer, decorated with applied silver and gilt-brass mounts. The dome bears the Royal shield of arms and Britannia with a shield bearing the combined crosses of St George and St Andrew. At the corners are the rose for England, the thistle for Scotland, and the lion and unicorn.



The dial shows hours and minutes but also has a sector aperture at the top which displays the days of the week, each with a figure personifying its ruling planet. The dial also has the frosted gold finish that your see on other watches by Daniels, or Smith, or a a Greubel Forsey. The year duration is achieved by using six-wheel gear trains which are driven by relatively large barrels and fusees. The clock has a verge escapement controlled by a short pendulum. It strikes the hours in passing and has a pull-quarter repeat system (it strikes the last hour and quarter on pulling a cord at the side of the case). A silver plaque on the dial is inscribed 'T Tompion Londini Fecit' ('Thomas Tompion of London made it').

Have a look here for inside photos of the movement (pages 7 and 8 in particular):
www.uhrenaktuell.de

When the fifth Lord Mostyn had possession of the clock, popular myth has the story that the Lord Mostyn was so fed up with winding the clock once a year (you can imagine that a year running clock takes a bit of winding), he decided to invite a few friends round, throw a party, and have everyone else wind the clock! At least as early as 1793 the Lord Mostyn is known to have held a small party when the clock was wound each year and all those present were encouraged to wind the clock and then sign their name in the record book. The records of those fortunate enough to wind the clock date back about 200 years.


(One of the past books on the left; the one to be signed on the right)

In 1982 the Lord’s Mostyn passed the clock onto the nation and it is now housed in the British Museum. The Director and Trustees of the British Museum now invite a few people each year to a party in the Sir Harry and Lady Djanogly Gallery of Clocks and Watches to both wind the clock and sign the record book.


(Guests gathered in the gallery)

This year, unexpectedly, I was invited to come along and wind the clock. I was allowed to invite one other and chose to ask ‘GregD’ to come along as he owned a Tompion pocket watch from around the same time and it seemed fitting that the pocketwatch and the clock should meet each other once again. So in the company of some of London’s ‘great and good’ we drank some wine, chatted to the assembled company, and took our turns winding the Mostyn Tompion Clock.









Tompion’s clock has been measuring the London year from Greenwich Mean Time for one year at a time for three centuries. Put it this way, if you owned a watch that needs winding once a day, then within a year you will have wound it more times than the Mostyn Tompion clock! Truly a masterpiece of a clock!

Andrew H