Thomas Mudge, London, 1755
Mechanism: polished brass
dial: silver plated and engraved
hands: blued steel
winding time: ten days
height 15.2 cm, width 15.2 cm, depth 10.4 cm
Inv. 1960.20.
This earliest known clock with a 'constant force escapement' was made by the London clockmaker Thomas Mudge (1715-1792) between 9 June and 31 October 1755. He followed the instructions and design of the Basle mathematician and astronomer Johann Jakob Huber (1733-1798), a pupil of Johann II and Daniel Bernoulli, who was in London during the summer of 1755. Huber had acquainted the renowned astronomer James Bradley with his proposals and following his recommendation had commissioned Mudge to build the clockwork. Huber brought the chronometer back with him to Basle. It was left to the scientific 'cabinet' of the University in 1829 by his son, the mathematician Daniel Huber.
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