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Category: Horology
Old Clocks for Modern Use: With a Guide to Their Mechanism by Edward Wenham
London: Spring Books, 1965
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Red boards with Gilt titling to Spine
Illustrated by: Edgar Holloway
Illustrated by way of: Frontispiece; Black & White Photographs; Black & White Drawings;
From the cover: It is obvious to most people that a clock is more than a mere means of counting off seconds, minutes and hours. What is perhaps not so obvious is that an old timepiece, from the workshop of a master craftsman, is no mere ornament either, and that for precision and accuracy a fine eighteenth century clock may be unexcelled by most modern specimens.
Edward Wenham enjoys clocks he enjoys making them and taking them to pieces, and he finds them relaxing companions. This sense of enjoyment is well conveyed in his book which traces the development of time-pieces from the earliest sundials, water clocks and sandglasses. His explanation of clock mechanism is clear and free of technical jargon and his descriptions of lantern clocks, bracket clocks and grandfather clocks all of them suitable for everyday use in modern homes and of more detailed features such as dials and hands, are far removed from the rather forbidding catalogue style of the museum or auction room.
It is this insistence that old time-pieces are not to be regarded as adornments that gives Mr. Wenhams book its practical value and appeal to the non-specialist reader. Modern reproductions of old clocks are not to be derided and amateur clock-making can be a wonderfully satisfying hobby, even if one cannot begin to emulate the wonderful clocks reproduced in the many line drawings and photographs in Mr. Wenhams book. As he says in his Preface,to the uninformed, any piece of machinery can appear almost alarmingly intricate; but if it is studied bit by bit and the reason for its action and movement followed to the source, its mystery disappears and is replaced by the pleasure which comes from understanding.
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