research

Henry Williams, Lancarvan

If you have a Henry Williams or Charles Vaughan clock, the authors would be very pleased to hear from you to further their research. Any communication will be treated with in the strictest confidence. Please email: ed.cloutman@googlemail.com or billlinnard@aol.com

NEW PAPERBACK: LIMITED EDITION

Charles Vaughan of Pontypool
A Mystery Clockmaker and His Clocks
by W. Linnard

This is a detailed study of Charles Vaughan, head of an important family of early clockmakers in industrial South Wales. Vaughan himself, the most prolific clockmaker in South Wales during the eighteenth century, is still something of a mystery, but he produced large numbers of long-case clocks with interesting and distinctive dials and quite unique movements, housed in country cases of oak and elm, full of character.
Lavishly illustrated, this book is based on family-history research, together with an in-depth study of all the surviving Vaughan clocks known, fifty in all, and presents a penetrating analysis of their technical and stylistic features and manufacture. Most of the clocks are thirty-hour long-cases with brass dials, ranging in date from 1742 to 1796. A few are eight-day brass-dial clocks, and one is an early painted-dial clock.
The book is a major contribution to the study of early clock-making in an industrial part of South Wales, and reveals the numerous idiosyncrasies and endearing naivety that make the Vaughan clocks so very interesting and attractive today, not only for clock enthusiasts but also for collectors of Welsh antiques.

This first edition is strictly limited to 400 individually numbered copies. It consists of 100 pages, with some 120 illustrations. Price £14.50 per book plus £2.00 P&P within the UK.

Published by Tathan Books, email: billlinnard@aol.com

HARDBACK: LIMITED EDITION

Henry Williams, Lancarvan

By E.W.Cloutman and W.Linnard

This is a detailed study of the life and work of Henry Williams (1727–1790), a farmer/clockmaker who produced some of the finest domestic clocks ever made in Wales. Apprenticed in Gloucester, but subsequently working in the little village of Llancarfan in the Vale of Glamorgan, Henry Williams was a remarkable and versatile clockmaker.
This lavishly illustrated book describes in detail all his known clocks, and presents a penetrating analysis of their stylistic features. The clocks include a month-going longcase clock, ten eight-day longcase clocks (three of them with tidal dials), two thirty-hour longcase clocks (one with alarm), and a fine bracket clock as well as silver watches.
The study reveals a connection between Henry Williams and the Bilbie family of clockmakers in Somerset, which gives important new insights into clock-dial manufacture and dial engraving in the eighteenth century. It also shows the relationships and social status of this master craftsman within the rural community in the ‘Garden of Wales’.
This book is a major contribution to the study of clockmaking in the eighteenth century and provides a unique picture of contemporary life in the Vale of Glamorgan.

This first edition is strictly limited to 300 individually numbered copies. It consists of 136 pages, hardback, with 180 illustrations and 4 colour plates. Price £24.50 including postage and packing within the UK.

Email: ed.cloutman@googlemail.com

HARDBACK:

Wales Clocks and Clockmakers
by William Linnard

This comprehensive reference book treats the subject from the earliest records of medieval Welsh clocks and their makers, through the eighteenth century, to the decline of traditional clockmaking at the end of the nineteenth century.
It includes: early turret clocks in Welsh churches; the first records of domestic clocks in Wales; and the inventories of Welsh clockmakers. Fully illustrated accounts are given of brass-dial and painted-dial longcase clocks, including distinctively Welsh features of dial decoration and case design. Further chapters cover Welsh tidal-dial clocks, and the many Welshmen who worked as clockmakers and watchmakers in London, Bristol and Shrewsbury. There are also detailed descriptions of some outstanding Welsh clocks.
A major part of this book is the comprehensive illustrated alphabetical list, giving details of well over 2,000 individual Welsh clockmakers and their clocks, while geographical and subject indexes facilitate searches and cross-referencing.
This book, the first on the clocks and clockmakers of Wales in over a quarter of a century, incorporates the latest research, much of it never before published. Much needed and long awaited, it is an essential resource for horologists, antique collectors and Welsh historians alike.

272 pages, hardback, 243 illustrations, map, appendix, index.

For full details of the book contact Mayfield Books at www.mayfieldbooks.freeserve.co.uk. or order direct from the Author: billlinnard@aol.com

PAPERBACK:

The Church Bells of Breconshire: their inscriptions and founders
by John C Eisel

Published July 2002 - Logaston Press IBSN1 873827 23 7.