Longcase clock
Jno Webster
Category
Horology
Date
1800 - 1825
Materials
Oak and mahogany, glass, steel, painted iron and brass
Measurements
2360 x 555 x 220 mm
Place of origin
Shropshire
Order this imageCollection
Wightwick Manor, West Midlands (Accredited Museum)
NT 1288488
Summary
Eight day English longcase clock in oak case, by John Webster, Shrewsbury, c.1810 Two train, four pillar movement with anchor escapement and rack hour-striking on bell. Unusual enclosed ratchets and solid great wheels, a brass rack and a cocked minute wheel. Cast iron weights. 14” white-painted break-arch dial with cast-iron false plate signed: “Walker and Finnemore / Birmingham”. Moon phase and lunar calendar in the arch, the moon disc painted with a pastoral scene and with a ship at sea. Painted floral spandrel decoration, and detailed globe maps below the moon-phase indication. Arabic numerals and quarters and with seconds dial and semi-circular calendar aperture in the dial centre which is signed: “Jno. Webster Salop”. Brass collars to the winding holes. Pierced brass hands with embossed decoration. Oak and mahogany case with mahogany veneers, inlays and cross-banding. Scroll-pediment hood with one central finial and brass lion’s mask paterae in the scrolls. Fluted, brass-capped columns to hood sides and fluted brass capped quarter columns to the trunk. Veneered panel above the trunk door with saw-tooth decoration in the border, in boxwood and ebony. Shaped top to rectangular trunk door, and with oval inlaid central decoration. Square base with fluted canted front edges and square panel with inlaid fan corners at top and oval in centre. Note: John Baddeley Webster (1779-1829) was one of four generations of clockmakers in the Webster family in Shrewsbury. James Webster of Mardol, (working 1740-1799) was succeeded by his son Robert, a maker of considerable ability, whose son was John Baddeley Webster. John Baddeley Webster set up on his own as a clockmaker at the age of seventeen in Dog Lane (now Claremont Street) in Shrewsbury in 1796. Between 1812 and 1814 he was in the High Street and he succeeded to his father’s business in Mardol in 1817. He married Mary Roberts at Baschurch on 12 November 1804 and a son James was born the following year. He was admitted a Burgess of Shrewsbury in 1807. He died after a severe illness in December 1829; his wife Mary died in 1837.
Marks and inscriptions
Jno.Webster, Salop
Makers and roles
Jno Webster