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INSTUCMi'.X rs IN IKE SFA'PA'TI'I-NTI I AND 



EIC.II'lI'J-N'ril CENTCKII-S: 



THEIR TRAI)l-:-(\\I<I)S AND OTHER R.XRIORA. 



liy A. M. ];K()ADL1:V. 

 Author <■/ " The Royal MinicU-r 



Al.THOlKJH the Guilds of the Clockmakurs and ourselves and our immediate predecessors." It may 

 the Spectaclemakers occupy a prominent position also have been thus with the Carpenters. When the 

 imonfTst the ancient Livery Companies of the City existing Clockniakers" Company was constituted 



in 1631, scientific clock- 

 making had already made 

 very considerable pro- 

 gress, and the Coffin- 

 Clock was an established 

 fact of some standing. 

 The makers of primitive 

 timepieces were at first 

 intimately connected with 

 both the Blacksmiths and 

 the Woodmongers, and it 

 was a difference with the 

 former which led to the 

 petition for separate incor- 

 poration in 1629-30. The 

 charter of the Clock- 

 makers bears the date of 

 August 22nd, 1631, and 

 its initial letters contain a 

 w tll-cxecutcd miniature of 

 King Charles I enthroned. 

 The Companvcan count on 

 its roll of members nearly 

 all the most distinguished 

 masters of the art: from 

 David Ramsev, the first 

 Master, down to William 

 James Frodshamandother 

 well-known clockmakers. 

 One of the most eminent 

 makers of clocks of the 

 early seventeenth cen- 

 tury was Edward East, 

 and it is said that the 

 granter of the charter, 

 when Prince, used to 

 play tennis for an 

 Hdu-anhis East, or, in 

 other words, a watch of 

 East's manufacture. 

 Thomas Tompion and 

 George Graham were 

 equally famous in their 

 day. tlie latter being a 

 member of the Royal 

 '' ''^^- Society. They were both 



buried in Westminster .^bbey, and Dean Stanlev was 

 instrumental in recovering and replacing the slab 

 recording the fact, which had been removed. The 



of London, the manu- 

 facturers of scientific 

 instruments of various 

 descriptions not coming 

 within these two cate- 

 gories do not appear to 

 have ever obtained a 

 charter or sought the 

 benefits and privileges of 

 incorporation. This is 

 the more curious and 

 inexplicable as the " art 

 and misterie" thev follow 

 has fiourished for con- 

 siderably more than three 

 centuries, and in man\- 

 cases the\- can boast of 

 a continuity of business 

 association rarclv to be 

 met with in other callings. 

 In his " History of the 

 Livery Companies of tin 

 City of London " Mr. \\ . 

 Carew Hazlitt mentions 

 the fact that in 1672 the 

 incorporated or voluntarv 

 associations of the Cart- 

 wrights, Boxmakers, and 

 Iiisfnimeiif - makers were 

 mentioned as branches of 

 the Carpenters ; but one 

 would imagine that the 

 artificers thus referred 

 to were engaged in the 

 production of saws and 

 chisels rather than in 

 that of the necessar\- 

 aids to mathematics or 

 navigation. It is 

 curious, however, to 

 note that the germ of 

 the Clockmakers" Guild 

 is to be found in the 

 muniments of tlie 

 Blacksmiths, who, both 

 here and on the 



Continent, as Mr. Hazlitt points out, "once and long 

 occupied a station importantly differing from the 

 workmen of the same denomination familiar to 



Figure S51. John DoUond. 



ICngraved by A. I'osselwhite, from an original picture in tli 



Rovat Observatory, Greenwich. 





Figure 333 



') 



Copley (".old Medal of the Royal Society, awarded to John Dollond 

 in the vear 1758. 



