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Floor Clocks
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While the names given to types of clocks are quite extensive, with very few exceptions
all clocks can be classified as one of three types: floor clocks; table or mantel
clocks; and wall clocks. This article, brought to you by Merritt’s Clock Shop,
explores one of those categories: the floor clock. You may view the other articles
here on Merritts.com on the subject of mantel clocks, table clocks, and wall clocks
by linking to these articles:
Mantel Clocks
Wall Clocks
Floor clocks were the first step to bringing a clock from the tower of a church or
town hall into a castle or home in the middle Ages. While rather cumbersome at the
outset, they did provide for both wealthier citizens and Abbeys a means of measuring
time inside rather than going to the town square. It also meant on cloudy or rainy
days, when the sundial would be useless, the time could be read or heard. In the late
13th and through most of the 14th century there was no way other than the use of
weights to power a clock, which gave rise to the rather large floor boxes, which we
sometimes today call “Grandfather Clocks” (although that term would not have been
known to any clockmaker until popularized by the song, “My Grandfather’s Clock”,
written in 1876 and, hence, making clocks made through the 18th century part of
“grandfathers” generation). The basics of these first “mechanical” clocks would not
change until the 20th century brought electricity to time-keeping. A detailed
description of the operation of the weights and pendulum in a floor clock can be
found in the following article here on Merritts.com:
Pendulum Clocks. For the moment
a brief overview of the operation of a floor clock follows. A series of two or three
weights were lifted, either by pulley or chain, and as they dropped back down, power
was supplied that moved the face of the clock, the hands, or struck the bell. An
escapement provided the measured release of energy from the falling weights to
maintain the time keeping, without which the weights would fall much to fast
shortening the useful time keeping. Early escapements (called verge) had little
accuracy from our perspective, but were an improvement over the existing water and
sand “clocks”. A case, which could be opened, was built into the floor clock to keep
the weights and pulleys from view except when being raised to start another cycle.
Blacksmiths who were most familiar with working with wrought iron and metals
originally made the clocks. Later, a guild would form of men who specialized in the
mechanics of clock making. Carpenters began making cabinets for these clocks, which
became more ornate as the years passed until they became almost a decorative piece of
furniture instead of just providing the function of telling time. Until the latter
part of the 15th century clocks with a hand usually only indicated the hour, with
some having small markings at the 15, 30, and 45-minute spot to approximate those
segments of the hour. The first recorded minute hand on a floor clock was in 1475,
the delay perhaps able to be attributed to adding a supplementary wheel to the
mechanism to drive an additional hand. Once that had been accomplished, the number of
displays possible on a floor clock were only limited to the imagination of the
clockmaker: days were the first supplement beyond the hour, minute, and second hands;
then months; signs of the zodiac; phases of the moon; and etc. were added to the face
of the clock making them more elaborate.
Click here to view some clocks. The invention or, rather, discovery of the
physical properties of a pendulum in 1656 revolutionized the accuracy of floor clocks
and along with the use a century earlier of spring wound power system meant that
clocks could now be made smaller, although the popularity of floor clocks would
continue throughout the centuries. Due to the size and weight of the floor clock,
they were probably not brought to the United States until the latter part of the 17th
century, church steeple and town clocks being the standard as the country grew, much
as they were in the beginning in Europe. Guilded horological artisans immigrated from
Europe and England to begin a fledgling clock making industry in major cities such as
Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore. Clock making through the early part of the 19th
century was almost exclusively floor clocks. While many other types were brought over
from Europe, they were not consistently manufactured in the United States until that
time. Through the 19th century, floor clock manufacture began a decline, being
supplanted by the smaller and less expensive mantel, table, or wall clocks. There
has been lately a resurgence of floor clocks of a much more modern variety, some even
with just “decorative” weights and pendulum a spring or quartz actually supplying the
power. Most have glass doors replacing the cabinet as contemporary weights and chains
and pendulums are much more attractive than the original hammered brass and iron.
However, the floor clock as a primary time keeping apparatus in homes has long-since
passed.
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