Ellicott cylinder watch 1780

Cylinder escapement fusee watch by Ellicott & Son (Edward Ellicott), London, 1779-1780. Gilt brass full-plate movement with pierced and engraved cock, diamond endstone and polished steel Tompion regulator disc within engraved surround, featuring Ellicott's characteristic rococo pillars and signed Ellicott LONDON 7371. Later custom-made silver hunter cased with engine-turning on bezel and back, signed JB/WW (Josiah Barnett and William Waters of Clerkenwell) and hallmarked London 1844. Convex white enamel dial with roman chapter-ring, mounted on oversize brass false-plate which actually envelops the original pillar plate (probably made at the same time as the case); some hairlines between X and XII. Gilt spade-&-pointer hands (the minute hand bent and roughly straightened). No crystal, as made. Diameter 54mm.

John Ellicott I (died 1733), a Cornishman by birth, founded a distinguished line when he set up as a watchmaker in London in the 1690s. His son, John II (1706-1772) ranked equally with Graham or Mudge in his day, although his inventions are less important; he adopted the cylinder escapement very soon after its invention by Graham in the 1720s, and he was also a notable theorist and an active Fellow of the Royal Society. His son Edward (d. 1791), John's partner from 1758 or 1760, continued in the same vein. Within its incongruous Victorian case (undoubtedly custom-made), this movement remains very much as Edward left it.

Plate-pillars of an especially elaborate and graceful design were a distinctive feature of Ellicott movements from at least the 1740s onwards. Note also the florid bracket for the stop-work arm (centre of picture) and the end of the set-up worm beneath the barrel at left. The original front plate is sandwiched between the large brass ‘false-plate’ which carries the dial and the enamel dial itself, so that the bases of the pillars disappear into slots cut in the false-plate..

The early English cylinder escapement is very like the common Swiss pattern of the next century, but the escape-wheel (A) is much larger in proportion to the movement and is made of brass. Its teeth on their vertical posts point downwards in this dial-up view. Just to the left of the escape-wheel arbor is the cylinder (B), here made of steel, although Ellicott used ruby cylinders on occasion.

The fact that this movement was considered worth face-lifting in the 1840s, when accurate lever watches were readily available, suggests that it must have performed to an exceptional standard for its time. Even now, given stable temperature conditions, it is capable of accuracy to within one minute in 24 hours. It has one notable peculiarity: if placed, dial upwards, directly on a hard surface, it immediately accelerates by about 1.5%, whereas if it is supported on an upturned dust-cover or similar cradle its rate returns to normal. This oddity of torque or vibration would have delighted John Ellicott, deviser of a scientific experiment in which two clocks, placed in close proximity, proved capable of starting and stopping each other.

The sound of a cylinder watch

The cylinder escapement shares a characteristic with the chronometer in that its sound is ‘tick-tick’ rather than ‘tick-tock’; the escape-wheel teeth meet the surface of the cylinder with much the same impact whichever way the balance is swinging.