NAWCC-CH159

"British Horology"

The Newarkes House Museum in Leicester

by Kenneth Johnston

      This year I had the pleasure of going on the Stately Homes in England Tour conducted by Philip Priestley on behalf of NAWCC Chapter 159. We saw many significant collections and I found the one at The Newarkes House Museum in Leicester to be the most memorable. Eric Bruton in his book The Longcase Clock features the reconstruction of Samuel Deacon's workshop in this museum and I had long promised myself a trip to see it. The museum is probably the most difficult Museum to get to in the whole of England as the traffic situation in Leicester is notoriously congested, but once found you are rewarded with the most wonderful insight into rural clockmaking in the 18th century. The Museum has a fine collection of clocks including lantern, tall case and tower clocks. The majority are country clocks made by local clockmakers. The room that drew my most attention, however, was the reconstruction of the Deacon clockmaker's workshop.

      The background to Samuel Deacon is probably best described by this transcribed notice from the display:

QUOTE

      In the second half of the 18th century the Leicestershire clockmaking industry was largely dominated by one man - Samuel Deacon. He was born at Ratby in 1746 and, as a boy, was apprenticed to clockmaker Joseph Donisthorpe of Normanton-le-Heath. In 1746 Deacon set up his own workshop at Barton-in-the-Beans, near Market Bosworth. He was a skilled craftsman and jeweler. He made time-pieces of every type from verge watches to church turret clocks. He also made his own tools, including the lathe and wheel cutting machine and undertook his own forging and casting. Samuel Deacon was a deeply religious man and was a deacon of the Baptist church. When died at the age of 70 in 1816 the business passed to his son John.

      In 1951 Mr. John Daniell, then assistant Keeper of Antiquities at this Museum, heard that the last of the male line of Deacons - Mr. T. W. Deacon - had decided to sell the family home and workshop. On the chance that there might still be some old tools left he investigated. To his amazement he found Samuel Deacon's original workshop of 1771 virtually intact. The wheel cutting machine, the wooden horse to test clock movements, part of the lathe were all still there. The workbench was littered with tools and cabinets. Latter Deacons had added to it and there were latter movements and dials. Up in the roof space under the dust and rubbish of more than a century were Samuel Deacon's account books, workshop records and material relating to the Baptist church (all now kept in the Leicestershire Record Office). The complete contents of the workshop were removed to the Museum. At first it was housed in an 18th century workshop in Castle View, Leicester (see Bruton's book for pictures of this display) but in 1983 it was reassembled in this room. It is believed to be one of the earliest surviving workshop's in this country.

      Among the many other interesting items was a tower clock by E. T Loseby. Born in Leicester in 1817, was apprenticed to Rotherhams in Coventry from 1831 to 1838 when he moved back to Leicester. He is best known for the Market Hall clock in Coventry that he designed in 1870. In the contract for the clock he agreed to forfeit £1 for every second it varied each day, but although the clock cost twice the original estimate of £308, Loseby never had to pay a forfeit. Trials in 1888 showed it to be accurate to within 0.2 second, making it far superior to the rival Westminster clock. In 1942 the Market Hall was damaged and the clock dismantled, stored and then used in the Godiva clock erected in Broadgate, Coventry in 1953, where it operates to this day.

      Just as we were being summoned back to the bus I came across an absolutely immaculate Bentley earth-driven electrical clock. This is truly a remarkable Museum.