Joseph Calvert

Fecit hoc Horologium

Joseph Calvert's first clock. A unique eight-day longcase clock made around c.1700 by the Wigton yeoman farmer Joseph Calvert, probably with the assistance from John Sanderson for the dial-making. Prototype work of an exceptional nature, of great interest in the beginnings of clockmaking in the region. Photographs by Lee Borrett

A Farmer’s Clock

Shown here is an exceptionally rare and historically important eight-day longcase clock dating from around c.1700, signed ‘Joseph Calvert Fecit hoc Horologium’ — ‘Joseph Calvert made this clock’. This unusual Latin inscription is not the conventional form one would normally expect from a professional clockmaker, and many features of the clock suggest that Calvert was instead a private individual making a clock for his own use, probably for the first time. Joseph Calvert was born in 1654 and spent his life as a yeoman farmer at Longthwaite, a small settlement just south of Wigton. Longthwaite lay only a short distance from Tiffinthwaite, where John Sanderson lived and worked, and surviving documentary evidence demonstrates that the Calvert and Sanderson families knew one another.

In 1690 Joseph Calvert, then aged thirty-six, was one of the signatories to the inventory taken following the death of John Sanderson senior, uncle of the nineteen-year-old John Sanderson who would later become the leading clockmaker of the Wigton School. It is therefore entirely understandable that when Calvert decided to make a clock for himself, he may have turned to the younger John Sanderson for advice or practical assistance. Exactly how much of the clock Calvert made personally cannot now be established. He may have constructed the movement himself and received help with the dial, or Sanderson may have played a greater part in the design and execution. What survives, however, strongly suggests an experimental collaboration rather than the work of an experienced professional clockmaker.

The Dial

Above Showing the wonderfully interesting 11-inch square brass dial of Joseph Calvert’s early eight-day clock, c.1700. Photograph by Lee Borrett

Below. Showing a close-up of the wonderfully busy dial centre with the engraved inscription ‘As hours make days, Soe time decays’. Photograph by Lee Borrett

The wonderfully busy 11-inch square brass dial contains a number of features associated with the early Wigton tradition. Most striking is the engraved inscription at the centre:

‘As hours make days,

Soe time decays.’

The dial also incorporates distinctive cup-and-ring decoration, a feature found on other early clocks associated with Wigton and its surrounding district. The relationship between the dial and movement is particularly revealing. The three original dial feet did not align satisfactorily with the finished movement and had to be repositioned higher up the dial, leaving visible evidence of the earlier fixing points. This alteration then created further problems. The seconds aperture had been drilled in the wrong position and had to be moved, while additional engraved ringing was used around the winding holes to disguise their awkward relationship with the movement. Even then the difficulties were not entirely resolved. The centre spoke of the offset twelve-hour calendar wheel interfered with the going-train winding arbor, requiring the winding shank to be shortened to provide clearance.

The result is a wonderfully revealing piece of early provincial clockmaking. Rather than hiding the difficulties encountered during construction, the surviving dial and movement preserve them for us and provide a rare glimpse of an inexperienced maker learning his way through the practical problems of building an eight-day clock.

Above. Showing a close-up of Joseph Calvert’s remarkable signature, ‘Joseph Calvert Fecit hoc Horologium’ — ‘Joseph Calvert made this clock’. Photograph by Lee Borrett

Mistakes, Alterations

and Ingenuity

Above. Showing one of the engraved collars added around the winding holes, apparently to disguise the difficulties encountered when fitting the completed dial to the movement. Photograph by Lee Borrett

Above. Another close-up of the wonderfully complex dial centre, preserving evidence of the alterations made during the clock’s construction. Photograph by Lee Borrett

Above. The four dial corners are decorated with distinctive cup-and-ring ornament. Photograph by Lee Borrett

Below. The original pendulum survives and carries similar cup-and-ring decoration. Close comparison suggests that the same or a very similar drill or cutting tool may have been used for the decoration on both the pendulum bob and the four corners of the dial. Photograph courtesy of private Collector

The Movement

Above. Showing the right-hand side of Joseph Calvert’s substantial eight-day movement with finned and ringed pillars. Close examination shows that the movement was originally made with five pillars, one of which was removed at a later date. Photographed by Lee Borrett

Below. Showing the left-hand side of Joseph Calvert’s finned and ringed pillar movement. Photographed by Lee Borrett

Below. Showing a close-up side view of the Joseph Calvert movement, c.1700. Photographed by Lee Borrett

The close geographical and documentary relationship between Joseph Calvert and John Sanderson is one of the most fascinating aspects of this clock.Calvert lived at Longthwaite, only a short distance from Tiffinthwaite, where Sanderson spent much of his early life and established his clockmaking career. In 1690 Calvert was one of the signatories to the inventory taken following the death of John Sanderson senior, demonstrating that the families were already acquainted before John Sanderson the clockmaker had reached adulthood. It therefore seems entirely plausible that when Calvert decided to make a clock for his own use around c.1700, he sought assistance from his younger neighbour, who by then had become an experienced clockmaker. The clock itself strongly supports the idea of collaboration. Its overall construction contains a mixture of accomplished and inexperienced work, while the dial displays decorative characteristics associated with the Wigton School, including the distinctive cup-and-ring ornament.

The late Brian Loomes believed that Sanderson may have assisted Calvert with the clock, particularly with the dial-making and general arrangement. Exactly where Calvert’s own workmanship ends and Sanderson’s begins can no longer be determined, but this uncertainty is part of what makes the clock so historically interesting. Rather than being the straightforward product of a professional workshop, it appears to preserve something much more personal: a local farmer attempting to construct a sophisticated eight-day clock, almost certainly with advice and assistance from one of the most important early provincial clockmakers in Cumberland.

The Calvert and

Sanderson Connection

A Clock

from the Beginnings

of the Wigton School

The clock dates from a particularly important period in the development of clockmaking around Wigton. Around c.1700 John Sanderson was already producing distinctive clocks with religious inscriptions and unusual movement construction, while the wider group that would later become known as the Wigton School was beginning to emerge.

Joseph Calvert does not appear to have been a professional clockmaker in the conventional sense. Nevertheless, his surviving work demonstrates how closely clockmaking could be embedded within the local community. A later 30-hour longcase clock and a further surviving dial signed by Calvert suggest that the experience of making this first clock was not his last. It appears that he went on to make at least two further clocks.

For this reason, I regard the surviving eight-day clock not simply as an isolated curiosity, but as an important piece of evidence for the formative years of the Wigton School and the network of local craftsmen, farmers and families surrounding John Sanderson.

The Later Walnut Case

The clock is now housed in a handsome red-walnut longcase with walnut crossbanding. Stylistically, the ogee moulding above the trunk, canted base and comparatively elaborate lower-trunk mouldings suggest a Cumbrian origin, probably within the Workington or Whitehaven area. The case is considerably later than the clock itself and appears to date from around the 1760s. Importantly, however, it seems to have been made specifically to receive this clock rather than being a later marriage to an existing case. By the 1760s an 11-inch dial was unusually small for an eight-day longcase clock, when dials of 12 inches or more had become normal. The fact that the case was constructed to accommodate Calvert’s much earlier 11-inch dial strongly suggests that it was purpose-made for the clock.

Research into the family provenance indicates that the clock may have passed to John Pattinson following the death of Joseph Calvert’s son William in 1765. John Pattinson was a witness to William Calvert’s will, and it is possible that the clock passed into the Pattinson family through this close association. Remarkably, it then appears to have remained with the Pattinson family, in the same locality, until 1995, when a family member who had inherited the clock eventually decided to sell it. This unusually strong provenance adds considerably to the historical importance of the clock, linking its eighteenth-century ownership with the Calvert and Pattinson families and helping to explain when and why its later case was made.

Right. The trunk door of the later red-walnut case, retained by its two original brass hinges. Photographed by Lee Borrett

Discovery and

Provenance

This remarkable clock was brought to wider attention through the research of the late Brian Loomes, who studied both Joseph Calvert and the surviving family provenance in considerable detail. Importantly, this actual clock is fully illustrated and discussed in Loomes’s book Clockmakers of Northern England, where he examined Joseph Calvert, the unusual construction of the clock and Calvert’s close relationship with John Sanderson. The late Brian Loomes subsequently returned to this same clock in Clocks Magazine, where it was again fully illustrated and discussed over two consecutive issues. These published studies provide an invaluable record of the clock and considerably strengthen its provenance and historical importance today.

The surviving evidence strongly suggests that Calvert was a private individual making a clock for his own use and that the numerous constructional difficulties visible today arose from the experimental nature of the project.

A surviving example of Calvert’s signature from 1690 provides a further direct link with the maker and with the documentary evidence connecting him to the Sanderson family.

Below. Discovered almost thirty years ago by Brian Loomes, many things about this clock tell us that this was a private individual who was probably making a clock for himself for the first time.Photographed by Lee Borrett

Below. Showing a surviving example of Joseph Calvert’s signature dating from 1690, providing a direct documentary link with the man who made this remarkable clock. Photographed by Lee Borrett

Summary

Joseph Calvert’s eight-day clock is one of the most unusual and historically revealing survivors associated with the early Wigton School of Clockmaking. Calvert was not, so far as we know, a professional clockmaker. He was a yeoman farmer living at Longthwaite, close to John Sanderson at Tiffinthwaite, and documentary evidence shows that the two families knew one another. The construction of the clock preserves numerous signs of experimentation: misplaced dial feet, a repositioned seconds aperture, altered winding arrangements and decorative engraving apparently used to disguise some of the difficulties encountered during its manufacture. Rather than detracting from the clock, these features make it especially important, allowing us to follow something of the maker’s thought process more than three centuries later. The stylistic connection with the Wigton School and the close personal relationship between Calvert and Sanderson strongly suggest that John Sanderson assisted with the project, although the precise extent of his involvement can no longer be established.

The later red-walnut case, apparently purpose-made for the clock during the 1760s, together with the surviving Pattinson family provenance, adds another fascinating chapter to its history.

The clock’s importance is further enhanced by its published history. This actual clock was studied and fully illustrated by the late Brian Loomes in Clockmakers of Northern England and was subsequently the subject of a two-part study by him in Clocks Magazine, where it was again illustrated. His detailed research brought both Joseph Calvert and this extraordinary survivor to the attention of a wider horological audience.

For me, this clock is particularly valuable because it takes us beyond the professional workshop and into the wider community surrounding the Wigton School. It shows how knowledge, tools and craftsmanship could pass between neighbours and acquaintances, and how one local farmer’s determination to make a clock for himself became part of the surviving history of early Cumbrian clockmaking.

Acknowledgement

I would like to acknowledge the pioneering research of the late Brian Loomes, who discovered and studied this remarkable clock more than thirty years ago and whose research did much to establish its history and significance.

Much of the historical information concerning Joseph Calvert, his relationship with John Sanderson and the early provenance of the clock was originally published by the late Brian Loomes in Clockmakers of Northern England.

Importantly, this actual clock is fully illustrated and discussed in that book and was subsequently studied and illustrated again by Loomes in a two-part article published in Clocks Magazine.

His research remains fundamental to our understanding of this extraordinary clock and of the wider Wigton School of Clockmaking. I have also incorporated observations arising from my own examination of the clock and from further surviving examples that have come to light since his original research was published.

Early Clocks | Lee Borrett