2的补充20180831_Treasures of Time_SMG_Research Package_Chapter 1

Hong Kong Science Museum Treasures of Time ExhibitonIPLACESSing-song with elephant and hunting scene, made in England. Palace Museum. Collection reference: 故182808. SOURCE FOR LICENSE ARRANGEMENT: image taken from exhibition collection listWhen the magnificent clocks, watches and automata from the Palace Museum collection are wound, they spring to life, sparkling and moving, bells chiming, figures animated. In the eighteenth century, Europeans called them “sing-songs”. This term was derived from words in the Chinese language meaning “self-ringing bells” or “bells that ring themselves,” referring to the seemingly magical nature of the clockwork-driven music that many of the clocks, watches and automata featured. Watching the sing-songs perform, it is hard not to be curious about how such wonderful devices came into being. In fact, many were made in eighteenth-century England. But where exactly did these sing-songs come from and who made them? What was the British clock and watch making industry like at the time? This chapter will introduce the people and places that produced the Palace Museum sing-songs. By exploring their production, it will present the fascinating transformation of the British watch and clock making industry over the course of the eighteenth century, from a traditionally organised craft centred within independent workshops to a sophisticated, industrialised network of makers spread throughout the country. THE DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPEAN MECHANICAL TIMEKEEPERSThe first European mechanical timekeepers emerged in the thirteenth century. The earliest devices were huge wrought iron structures installed in town squares or church towers, known as turret clocks. These large public clocks were controlled by a verge and foliot escapement and were powered by huge weights suspended from pulleys. They were generally simple and approximate timekeepers. Many early examples did not have dials or hands but instead communicated the passage of time to the community through the striking of a bell on the hour, or at a predetermined time such as an impending religious service. Few examples of these early mechanical clocks survive today. The Science Museum is home to the second oldest surviving clock in England and one of the oldest in the world, the turret clock formerly in Wells Cathedral, made in 1392. Today, the clocks intricately decorated face can still be found in situ in Wells Cathedral.The Wells Cathedral clock on display in the Science Museum, London, in 2018. SOURCE FOR LICENSE ARRANGEMENT: Science Museum Group www.scienceandsociety.co.ukMore akin to architectural structures than timepieces as we know them today, turret clocks were usually built by teams of people from established crafts who were familiar with the materials and had relevant metalworking skill sets, such as blacksmiths, braziers, lock smiths, gun makers and cannon founders. Craftsmen were often paid in kind (in food and accommodation) as well as receiving remuneration for their work. Production was directed by a master clock maker who would have been a versatile and experienced craftsman with the knowledge required to guide the making of every part of the clock. Labour was sourced from the local area when a project emerged, and teams were disbanded once the work was completed.Smaller domestic clocks which could be installed indoors for private use began to be produced around 1400. These weight-powered timekeepers were essentially miniaturised versions of turret clocks, designed to be hung on the wall with the weights suspended below them. These early indoor clocks were very expensive and were only affordable for the wealthiest members of society. Like the public turret clocks that came before them, the first domestic clocks were not very accurate, and they often had only an hour hand. As a luxury item, they would have been bought to be displayed as a status symbol, showing off the owners wealth, taste and desire for novelty, rather than serving primarily as a timekeeping device.The period from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century was one of extraordinary horological ingenuity and activity, resulting in a number of key developments that significantly improved the accuracy of mechanical timepieces, including the introduction of the spring-driven clock, fusee, pendulum and balance spring. These innovations made mechanical timekeeping much more reliable. Instead of referring to the nearest quarter, minutes began to be used by people more widely. With technological refinements, timepieces became gradually smaller and thinner in size, facilitating the emergence of watches around 1500. These pocket-sized timekeepers could operate while being carried around, allowing people to track the passing of time on-the-go.WORKSHOPS, GUILDS AND THE MEDIEVAL CRAFT IDEALWoodcut by Jost Amman illustrating a work of Hans Dachs from 1568, showing clock makers at work. Wellcome Collection. SOURCE FOR LICENSE ARRANGEMENT: /worksThe makers of the earliest domestic clocks were based in the home, with a small workforce made up of family members. The ideal dwelling had three storeys, with living quarters on the lower floors and the top floor reserved for a workshop. As horological technology became more complex and the market for clocks and watches expanded, workshops gradually became separated from the home and teams of local workers were recruited.Workshops allowed in as much natural light as possible, through windows or an open shop front. Before the advent of the oil lamp in the eighteenth century, watch and clock makers were reliant on natural and candle light, causing the working environment to fluctuate dramatically with the passing of the day, and indeed the seasons. Inside, a fire used for heating metal would be lit at dawn and maintained throughout the day. Workshops were bustling spaces, scattered with tools, parts and works-in-progress of varying sizes. Timepieces were either made on commission or were sold direct from maker to buyer, and the shops wares could often be seen hanging in the shop windows to entice passers-by. Viewing Jan van der Straets Horologia Ferrea, one gets a vivid sense of the heat, scents and sounds of early clock making workshops, with the fire roaring and the air filled with the sound and debris of hammering, filing, cutting and drilling metal. Print showing a clock making workshop by Jan van der Straet (Stradanus) of Antwerp entitled Horologia Ferrea made around 1580-1605. British Musum SOURCE FOR LICENSE ARRANGEMENT: British Museum - /join_in/using_digital_images/using_digital_images.aspx?asset_id=283316001&objectId=53818&partId=1Early clock makers aspired to the medieval craft ideal of one day being able to make and assemble every part of a clock, from raw materials to completed masterpiece. As in other crafts at the time, artisans spent a lifetime in pursuit of this ambition. In reality, the roles within a workshop were organised according to a strict hierarchy of knowledge and experience. Labour was divided up between workers according to the level of complexity and skill required to complete each job. A maker began their career as a student apprentice to a master, usually at the age of fourteen. In this role they learned the skills needed to make a clock alongside carrying out unskilled work such as stoking fires and cleaning. Apprentices were recruited from the local community and their contract would have included bed and board within the masters home.With the successful completion of between three and seven years of training, an apprentice was promoted to the status of journeyman. Journeymen had the skills required to make a complete clock but were not yet ready to open their own workshop. After years of hard work, perseverance and saving, a journeyman could finally become a master. This was an arduous task only completed by the most committed of workers. Indeed, some journeymen never managed to save enough money to set up on their own and spent a lifetime at the whim of a master, despite possessing the level of skill to become a master themselves.A master clock maker owned a workshop and planned, oversaw and signed the work produced there. Masters were also responsible for training apprentices and employing journeymen, transmitting their knowledge to the next generation of makers. When a master passed away, their shop might be passed on to a blood relative, or to their best journeymen who often entered the bloodline by marrying the widow, daughter or niece of the late master.The workshop hierarchy was maintained by a regulatory body known as a guild. First emerging throughout Europe from around the twelfth century, guilds were groups of people practicing the same craft who were responsible for the regulation of competition, standards and employment within their trade. Early guilds were often divided by material, for example smiths, brewers and masons. Clock makers were initially members of general metalworking guilds, such as the smiths. On 22 August 1631, a clock makers guild entitled the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles I. The Charter gave the Company the power to control the trade of timepieces in the City of London and a radius of ten miles around the city, for example by regulating training, wages, sales and standards of quality. The key priority of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers was to enforce the rule that only Freemen those who had completed an apprenticeship (were free) and joined the Company were entitled to make and sell timepieces. To become a Freeman, makers had to prove their skills through production of a masterpiece, as well as presenting a certificate of good and faithful service signed by their master. This forced all aspiring makers to endure the lengthy process of apprenticeship. Once admitted to the Company, Freemen had to pay a fee for the privilege plus a quarterly payment for as long as they remained in the trade. The Company defined the standards, processes and methods which could be used by makers within their jurisdiction and they were highly suspicious of new ideas and techniques. Workshops were only permitted to sell their own wares and all imports were strictly forbidden. The Company decided who could become a master and limited the total number of apprentices and journeymen who could be employed within one workshop in order to control growth and output. The Company was entitled to search workshops and destroy any goods deemed to be imported or substandard. In an attempt to protect the status and value of the clockmakers craft, the Company sought to limit and control innovation and growth for those permitted to join the trade, and indeed the industry as a whole. However, over the next few decades, a series of international events would change the landscape of English clock and watch making and eventually the Clockmakers Company would lose almost all of its power and control. THE ROOTS OF A GOLDEN AGE On 17 October 1685, King Louis XIV of France revoked the Edict of Nantes. The law had granted toleration and civil rights to the Huguenots, a Protestant minority, since 1598. In the years that followed, 40-50,000 Huguenots migrated to England to escape religious persecution. The Huguenot exodus was a significant episode in a long tradition of migration of skilled craftsmen to England from foreign countries. From the Reformation to the Thirty Years War, the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries witnessed a reconfiguration of populations and power in Europe. War, economic collapse, political unrest and religious persecution triggered mass migration of people hoping for work and a better life from Italy, France, Germany and Flanders to the towns and cities of England, Switzerland and the Netherlands. This large-scale movement of people included many skilled clock and watch makers who brought their knowledge and experience with them, ushering in a new era of skill, artistry and ingenuity in British horology. Early Balance Spring Pocket Watch by Thomas Tompion with Regulator Type Dial, made 1675-1679. Science Museum Group. Collection reference: 1985-1537. SOURCE FOR LICENSE ARRANGEMENT: Science Museum Group www.scienceandsociety.co.ukWhile craft and artistry were thriving in the clock and watch workshops of London, intellectual interest in scientific inquiry and experimentation was blossoming across Europe in what has been popularly dubbed the Scientific Revolution. A focus on accuracy and precision, determined by measurement and experimentation, was beginning to transform the way people saw the physical world and our place within it. With new knowledge came a fascination with all things mechanical, and a desire to test and explore their potential. In this context, clocks and watches became a subject of study, analysis and experimentation. Intellectual curiosity merged with technical skill to produce timepieces of the highest sophistication and complexity. Several great masters including Thomas Tompion (16391713), Thomas Mudge (1715/694), George Graham (16741751) and John Harrison (16931776) rose to prominence. They introduced ground-breaking technical innovations such as the dead-beat escapement and the marine chronometer, increasing the precision and prestige of English timepieces. At the same time, collaboration between British craftsmen and experienced makers from Continental Europe resulted in the emergence of a distinctively English style of timepiece.These developments took place against a backdrop of a changing society. An increasing number of people were leaving the countryside to live and work in towns and cities. Britain was becoming urbanised at a faster rate than other European nations, with around 25% of the population living in Britains towns and cities by 1700 compared to an average of just 10% on the Continent. As urban populations grew, the economy prospered. Real wages increased and a large, relatively wealthy, middle class made up of professionals such as doctors and merchants became an established feature of British society. This segment of the population could afford to purchase luxury items, including timepieces, driving an unprecedented expansion of consumption in metropolitan centres. This, in turn, attracted greater numbers of skilled craftsmen to towns and cities, where labour was in high demand. A network of roads connecting towns and cities expanded to meet the needs of an increasingly urban nation, with coaches ferrying passengers, information and goods through Britains rapidly transforming landscape, from village to town and town to city. From urbanisation to scientific revolution, the events which took place across the Continent in the period 16851700 created an environment in which British horological skill and innovation thrived and demand for British clocks and watches escalated on an international scale. London was the pulsing commercial heart of an increasingly urban Britain, for makers, consumers and traders. At the dawn of the eighteenth century, around 600,000 people lived in the metropolis and the citys port welcomed more than 7000 ships every year, connecting Britain with a commercial network that reached around the world. CLOCK AND WATCH MAKING IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITAINBy the 1700s, the English were known for making the best clocks and watches in the world and there was an extraordinary international demand for their work, from Turkey to China. Watches and clocks became big business, thrusting horology into the world of commerce and commodities. Tens of thousands of clocks and watches were made in England every year to supply the booming market, with estimates of up to 200,000 watches being produced every year by the end of the century. The riches promised by foreign trade enticed a new breed of producer-entrepreneur. These were businessmen, often trained as jewellers or goldsmiths, who commissioned masters to produce batches of elaborate sing-songs specifically for export to foreign markets. Some producer-entrepreneurs designed pieces themselves while others commissioned artists to bring their vision to life. Created with materials, iconography and styles targeted at the imagined foreign buyer, the works they produced for export were quite distinct from clocks and watches targeted at buyers in Britain. Made from lustrous materials such as gold, silver, enamel, pearls and precious stones, they were complex works that traversed a wide variety of technical and artistic crafts, including cabinet making, gilding, engraving, sculpting, enamelling, jewelling, gold and silver smithing, casting, painting and clock and watch making. The producer-entrepreneur divided the overall design for each piece into its component parts and subcontracted specialist makers to produce each part. Even within this subdivision there was further subdivision, mobilising a vast network of thousands of makers and artists throughout England to make each sing-song. The beauty and complexity of the Palace Museum sing-songs can be more fully appreciated by an understanding of these networks of manufacture. This chapter will focus on the subdivision of labour within the horological trade as just one example of the subcontracting process.Clock in a wooden pavilion and with a bronze moving figure, made in England. Palace Museum. Collection reference: 故183316. SOURCE FOR LICENSE ARRANGEMENT: image taken from exhibition collection listProducer-entrepreneurs commissioned master watch and clock makers to create the mechanisms for their export sing-songs. The traditional small-scale horological workshops of Britain did not have the capacity to meet the booming international demand for their ware