Publishers full description of Title :
Contents
The Company of Smiths,Shrewsbury
The Company of Hammermen,Ludlow
The Worshipful Clockmakers Company,London
Biographical list of clock and watchmakers
The story of J B Joyce & Co Ltd,Whitchurch
Thomas Vickery
Appendix
Letters of John Briant,Clockmaker 1812
Craftsmen by Towns And Villages
171 Pages With some black and white photos.
8.75" x 5.5", with colour dust jacket.
Old clocks and watches have a great interest for most people, especially those made in their own localities. Invariably their owners wish to know something of the craftsmen who made them, when they lived, where their shops were situated, their family background, their births and deaths and their relative fame and reputation.
This book supplies that information about some 550 craftsmen, born or working within the county of Shropshire, from the early 16th century to the late 19th, together with much background material on the development of the trade in the county and fuller accounts of the exceptional firms. There is a whole chapter on the Joyce family, of Whitchurch, for example. The oldest turret clockmakers in the world, they could be said to have put Shropshire on the horological map. Also included, as a closely related craft, are barometer makers. As with clock and watchmakers, there is an interesting influx of Italian craftsmen to be noted from the early 19th century.
Just over one quarter of the craftsmen who made clocks and watches in Shropshire did so in Shrewsbury, with the rest divided between Bridgnorth, Ellesmere, Ludlow, Newport, Oswestry, Shifnal, Wellington and Whitchurch. Many sources have been searched to unearth their varied stories, parish registers, newspapers, churchwarden's accounts, directories, census returns, wills, poll books, burgess rolls and others too numerous to mention. The result is a book that will intrigue the Salopian with an interest in the county's past or in an old clock, but will be an essential tool for the collector or dealer and a valuable contribution to British horological history. |
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