DENT, DENISON, VULLIAMY, AIRY, BARRY, etc
Copies of their letters relating to the Palace of Westminster Clock (Big Ben).
£395.00
Parliamentary Paper No 500, being Returns to an Order of the Honourable The House of Commons for July 1847 and March 1848, as ordered to be re-printed by the House of Commons, June 1852. Copies “of all the Papers and Correspondence relating to the Great Clock and all other Clocks for the The New Palace at Westminster (omitting Drawings and Descriptions of Mechanical Details).” Together with Copies “of all Correspondence relating to the Great Clock and all other Clocks for the The New Palace at Westminster (subsequent to, and exclusive of, the Correspondence printed and laid before this House upon the 22d day of July 1847), to the present Time.”
71 foolscap pages, 53 letters reprinted in full, including the extensive description of the proposed clock by Vulliamy and alternative tenders from Dent and Whitehurst. Please note that the drawings referred to in their descriptions were not included in the printed Returns.
A fascinating and first hand account of the gestation of what turned out to be the remarkable clock made by Frederick Dent with the modified gravity escapement as proposed by Edmund Denison, later Lord Grimthorpe, all much to the anguish of B L Vulliamy who failed to obtain the order he so obviously desired.
A rare survival. 4 sections stitched as supplied, clean and ready to be bound. A similar copy, with additional pencilled remarks by Dent was sold at Sothebys in July 1989, to Hans Staeger, making £1760.
Item available
Description
Parliamentary Paper No 500, being Returns to an Order of the Honourable The House of Commons for July 1847 and March 1848, as ordered to be re-printed by the House of Commons, June 1852. Copies “of all the Papers and Correspondence relating to the Great Clock and all other Clocks for the The New Palace at Westminster (omitting Drawings and Descriptions of Mechanical Details).” Together with Copies “of all Correspondence relating to the Great Clock and all other Clocks for the The New Palace at Westminster (subsequent to, and exclusive of, the Correspondence printed and laid before this House upon the 22d day of July 1847), to the present Time.”
71 foolscap pages, 53 letters reprinted in full, including the extensive description of the proposed clock by Vulliamy and alternative tenders from Dent and Whitehurst. Please note that the drawings referred to in their descriptions were not included in the printed Returns.
A fascinating and first hand account of the gestation of what turned out to be the remarkable clock made by Frederick Dent with the modified gravity escapement as proposed by Edmund Denison, later Lord Grimthorpe, all much to the anguish of B L Vulliamy who failed to obtain the order he so obviously desired.
A rare survival. 4 sections stitched as supplied, clean and ready to be bound. A similar copy, with additional pencilled remarks by Dent was sold at Sothebys in July 1989, to Hans Staeger, making £1760.
