A LABELLED LIVERPOOL CLOCK CASE

Christopher Gilbert

Clocks, like barometers and musical instruments, have traditionally been treated separately by furniture historians and there is evidence that, at least in London, clock cases were made in specialist workshops — successive editions of The Cabinet-Makers’ London Book o f Prices certainly omitted them from the record of furniture in common production. However, in the provinces, especially it seems in the north, clock cases were provided by general cabinet makers; Books of Prices issued by masters and journeymen in the Lancashire towns of Liverpool, Preston and Bolton included costings for ‘square head’ and ‘arch head’ clock cases, while an article by Susan Stuart in the first volume of our Journal discussed cases made by Gillows of Lancaster.

Clock cases bearing a maker’s label are quite rare, so drawing attention to a fine Liverpool example needs, I trust, no defence (Fig. i). The printed paper trade label pasted inside the door is of capital interest because it not only carries an informative text ‘Looking Glasses and | C A B IN E T GOODS OF | all Sorts Made and Sold by | John Orme [ Cabinet Maker and Glass Grinder | Ranelagh Street | Liverpool’ ; but is also inscribed in ink with the date ‘Feby z ist 1 7 7 1 ’ and features five diminutive pieces of furniture including a long-case clock (Fig. z). The fire screen is a conflation of two designs in the second edition of Genteel Houshold Furniture in the Present Trade (c. 176 5), plate 9 1 , and the dressing table is a simplified version of a model illustrated on plate 34. A precise source has not yet been identified for the chair or looking glass, but the clock conforms to a familiar Lancashire design type.

N o other furniture bearing John Orme’s trade label has so far been recorded and little is known about his career except that he was apprenticed to the prominent Liverpool cabinet maker Charles Charles, became free by servitude in 17 6 5 and set up business on his own account initially in King Street and then at 9 Ranelagh Street.1

The ambitiously styled clock case expresses a strong Lancashire personality and certain design features display a distinctive Liverpool character. The complex profile of the scrolled pediment enriched with dentils, carved and gilt rose terminals and infill panel painted blue-black bearing rococo tendrils is typical of the region (Fig. 4). Decorative glass panels were a popular alternative. The boxed superstructure to the hood supporting turned side finials and a central platform with a carved lip are further evidence of high quality. The impost at the head of the trunk is elaborately banded with coved Gothic arcading between Greek and Chinese frets. The double-fluted front pillars on the hood and quarter columns on the body are standard elements on upmarket Liverpool clock cases of this period, but the canted and rusticated pedestal (Fig. 5) is a notably luxurious feature.2 Other refinements include the way in which the door and pedestal are faced with two sheets of matched veneer so that the richly figured mahogany creates a balanced effect. The back-board and door are of oak with solid mahogany sides and pine inner structures. The eight-day movement is signed ‘Jon Drinkwater|LiverpooP, recorded as a watchmaker at 34 Pool Lane in 1 7 7 7 , and the arch is engraved ‘Time Shew’s the way of Life’s Decay’.

Regional Furniture Volume V 1991

1 0 4 L I V E R P O O L C L O C K C A S E

i. Clock by J. Dnnkwater, Liverpool, i — i. Ht. 96 m.

z. Case-maker’s label inside door

3. Liverpool Book o f Prices (1805)

Cloc

k Ca

se S

urbu

se.

Scro

ll Co

rnic

e.

C H R I S T O P H E R G I L B E R T 1 0 5

4. Detail of hood 5. Detail of rusticated base

Finally, it is instructive to compare the cabinetwork with two specifications and an illustration of design details (Fig. 3) in the Supplement to the Cabinet and Chair Prices Settled Between the Master and Journeymen Cabinet Makers, in Liverpool dated 15 March 18 0 5 .3 Interestingly, the profiles of the ‘Clock Case Surbase’, the ‘Scroll Cornice’ and ‘Base Mouldings’ (lower) exactly correspond to the published diagrams despite the thirty-five year time gap — a discovers- which underlines the conservatism of provincial design attitudes. Both specifications in the Liverpool Supplement are reprinted below because they serve as a valuable source of contemporary terminology and it is rewarding to try and relate the cost analysis for optional extras to features on John Orme’s distinguished clock case.

R E F E R E N C E S

1. G. W. Beard and C. G. Gilberr eds , Dictionary of English Furniture Makers (1986).r. B. Loomes. Lancashire Clocks and CJockmakers 19 -5 ;, contains useful information on regional clock case designs. A dock of c. 1 — 5 by Robert Anderson. Liverpool in the Noel Terry collection at Fairfax House, York, has rusticated quoins.;. Liverpool Reference Library contains a possibly unique copy of the Supplement, I am grateful to them for supplying a photocopy of this 52 pp. publication.

APPENDIX

CLO CK CASE, No. i

L s. d.WITH square head, two pillars in the do. quarter columns in the

body, with frieze and astragal, the pedestal canted, top of door square with hollow comers; plain cove impost, and Tuscan surbase, as in plate of m ouldings...................................................... i z o

E x t r a s .

For pitch, open, and scroll pediment, see Do. in LondonBook.............................................................................................

Fluting body c o lu m n s .........................................................................o i oReeding do..............................................................................................o i 4Fluting head columns, each....................................................................o o 6Reeding do..............................................................................................o o 8Half pillars in front of head fluted, each.................................................o o 6Ifdo.be reeded, each............................................................................. o o 7Do. at back of head fluted, e a c h .......................................................... o o 3If do. be reeded, each............................................................................. o o 4Whole columns in the body fluted.......................................................... o 3 oIf do. be reeded.......................................................................................o 3 6Veneering breaks for whole columns......................................................o o 8Do. plinths, each side............................................................................. o o 1Do. cants, each....................................................................................... o o zVeneering rails above and below d o o r .................................................o o 3Slipping or veneering stiles....................................................................o o 2Square pannel under door with quarter round....................................... o 1 3Mitering mahogany round do. to form quarter r o u n d ......................... o o 4Veneering do...........................................................................................o o 3Do. door.................................................................................................o o 10Do. p e d e s ta l.......................................................................................o o 8Joint in veneer of d o o r .........................................................................o o 6Do. in pedestal.......................................................................................o o 4Veneering door frame cross w a y .......................................................... o o 10Do. feather b a n d e d ............................................................................. o 1 4Architrave, e x tra .................................................................................. o o 3Frame for pedestal, when a raised p a n n e l............................................ o o 9A raised pannel with quarter ro u n d ......................................................o 1 oHollow corners in do. each....................................................................o o 3Moulding on front and sides between door and pannel, broke over

the p lin th s ....................................................................................... o 1 6Hollows in the head, e a c h ....................................................................o o 6Veneering body sides, each....................................................................o o 8Do. Pedestal do. each............................................................................. o o 4Do. head do. e a c h ................................................................... o o 4Do. box sides, e a c h ............................................................................. o o 3Clamping door, each clamp....................................................................o o 3Joints in door or pedestal, each............................................................... o o 1Moulded brackets.................................................................................. o o 6Moulded French brackets, e x t r a .......................................................... o o 6French feet and commode base, veneer’d ............................................ o 1 6

IO6 L I V E R P O O L C L O C K C A S E

C H R I S T O P H E R G I L B E R T 1 0 7

Small moulding or band above caps, and under base of columns,e a c h .................................................................................................o o 3

Small pedestals capp’d with veneer, (top of head) e a c h ......................... o o iViO G comers at top of door (middle part straight) worked with

quarter r o u n d .................................................................................. o o 3Do. with hollow middle, worked with do................................................o o 6Do. with double O G middle, worked with d o ....................................... o o 9Mitering mahogany round door to form quarter round......................... o o 6Oiling and polishing............................................................................. o o 9

C LO CK CASE, No. 2.

WITH arch head, three wood friezes for painting, form’d by margin of veneer, laid on the front board, two pillars in the head, quarter columns in the body, with frieze and astragal; the pedestal canted, top of door square, with hollow comers; plain cove impost, Tuscan surbase, and the moulding of scrolls to be as in plate of ditto, a neck mould instead of a dome, glass door, either veneeredcross way, or worked quarter ro u n d ........................................... 1 1 2 o

E x t r a s .

A moulded dome pierced through to form leaves...................................o 1 6Three glass friezes in the h e a d ............................................................... o o 6Forming friezes by a string grooved in each............................................ o o 8A plain taper key-stone.........................................................................o o 1A key-stone moulded, with double O G .................................................o o 3Banding and stringing, see London Book.All other extras, see No. 1 Clock Case.

AN AMERICAN TAVERN TABLE?

Gerald W. R. Ward

Most books on American furniture include at least some reference to a type of object described as a ‘tavern table’, usually a small four-legged table. Few if any of these objects, however, can be documented as having been actually used in a tavern.

One possible exception to this is an eighteenth-century table now on loan to Strawbery Banke Museum from the Warner House Association of Portsmouth. This large gate-leg table (Fig. i) is now back in its purported original location in the William Pitt Tavern, a locally important inn built in 17 6 6 and now part of Strawbery Banke Museum.1 Although one might wish that there was more documentation to substantiate the modem tradition, the rather severely plain appearance of the table, its considerable wear, and some small clues raise the intriguing possibility that the table is indeed a rare example of late eighteenth- century tavern furnishings.

According to a twentieth-century tradition, published in The Portsmouth Herald on 3 August 19 3 6 , the object in question was ‘an old American table of pre-Revolutionary days which came from the Earl of Halifax and William Pitt Tavern, which was erected in 17 7 0 [s/c]. Washington, Lafayette, and Louis Phillipe of France once sat at this table.’ The table was then located in the kitchen of the McPhaedris-Warner House, where it was part of a loan exhibition entitled ‘Ancestors at Home’ held at that important historic house in 19 36 .

Twenty years later, in 19 56 , the Warner House Association purchased the table from Robert King Atwell, a professor at Columbia University whose family was from Ports­mouth. It is not known how the table came into the possession of the Atwell family, and no record of the table before 19 3 4 (with the exception of the inventory evidence cited below) has yet been found. There has been a long relationship between Pitt Tavern and New Hampshire Freemasons, and the Atwells were active Masons in Portsmouth, suggesting one link between the table and the Atwells.

The evidence provided by the estate inventory of John Stavers, innkeeper, taken 18 October 17 9 7 , is suggestive but somewhat inconclusive.2 Stavers built the tavern in 17 6 6 and operated it until his accidental death. The marvellously detailed room-by-room document includes two entries that may refer to this table. In ‘lower room N o. 1 ’ there was a mahogany table described as being ‘4 feet long’ and valued at $8 ; ‘Room No. 4 ’ on the first floor included a ‘Large black walnut table 5 feet’ valued at $3 .5 0 . The table in question is 3 feet 9 inches wide across the stationary leaf, and is also 4 feet 10V2 inches deep with its two leaves in the open position. The table’s primary wood appears to the naked eye to bear a strong resemblance to walnut (and it has been catalogued as such for years), but recent investigation, confirmed by microanalysis, indicates that the table is actually made of mahogany, with beech as a secondary wood. Thus, if an entry in the inventory does indeed correspond with the surviving table, it is probably the reference to the mahogany table ‘4 feet long’ . This mahogany table was among the most valuable articles of furniture in the inventory, exceeded in value only by a mahogany eight-day clock ($30), a ‘ four post maple bedstead on trucks with Canvas bottom’ ($20.50), and a ‘fluted four post Canvas bottom bedstead of Cherry tree/new’ ($10).

Regional Furniture Volume V 1991

G E R A L D W. R . W A R D 1 0 9

i. Gate-leg table, probably Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 1770—1800. Mahogany with beech side rails. Height 30 in.; width 45 in.; depth i9 3/i6in.; depth open 581/: in. Owned by the Warner House Association, Portsmouth.

Strawbery Banke Museum (L1987.3)

The table is a functional object that shows evidence of considerable wear and tear over the years, as one might expea from a tavern table. The large leaves are each fashioned from a single wide board and have rounded edges. The original end stretchers have been lost, and modern end rails have been dovetailed in place as reinforcements. The castors are additions, and the hinges are probably replacements.

A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S

The writer is grateful to Bill Lyman of the Warner House Association for sharing information on the table and arranging for its loan; to Brock Jobe of the Society for the Preservation of New England Annquities for sharing his worksheet on the table; to Barbara McLean Ward for performing the wood analysis: and to Rodney Rowland for assistance in research.

REFEREN CES

1. The Pin Tavem is discussed in Donna-Belle Garvin and James L. Garvin, On the Road North o f Boston: New Hampshire Tot ems and Turnpikes, 1-0 0 -/9 0 0 Concord: New Hampshire Historical Society, 1988), p. 19 and passim.2_ Rockingham Counry Probate Records, docket 6584.