John Roger Arnold, London No.499

Rare 2-day going-barrel chronometer with good Royal Navy history. Circa 1823.

Case

Original 3-piece mahogany box with gimbals and brass canister bowl typical of the Arnold firm at this time, the lid with later (1831) Edward I Dent label and a later ivory disc engraved for Dent.

Dial

Original signed silvered dial with the additional engraving noting the changes ’NEW ESCAPEMENT, BALANCE & BALANCE SPRING by E J DENT, LONDON,’ original blued-steel hands.

Movement

Fullplate movement engraved for Arnold, unusually with Breguet-style going-barrel, the top plate with the empty slot where the original Arnold-type spring-detent would have been placed. Now with Pennington-type dovetail detent with gold passing-spring. 11-turn blued-steel helical balance-spring with terminal curves and Pennington-type compensation balance.

Box approx 7 inches (18 cm) square.

John Roger Arnold, working with and successor to his father, the largest supplier of box chronometers to the Royal Navy, then operating from their manufactory in Eltham. Purchased in 1823, probably by Captain Anthony De Mayne who used this chronometer abroad HMS Kangaroo which did survey work around the West Indies. No 499 entered into the Royal Navy’s recorded listing in 1825 (see V Mercer), from when it had a further interesting working history: HMS Thetis, HMS Espiegle, Has Wellesley, HMS Isis and HMS Raven. It received a new escapement by Dent (probably sub-contracted to the Pennington firm) in 1831 and was released from Royal Navy service in 1843 in an exchange of chronometers with Messers Dent.

Going-barrel chronometers were occasionally used by John Roger Arnold and clearly show the influence on him from his time spent in the Breguet workshops.

The inside of the box with an old clipping from The Times, 19/10/1906, stating “The Lords of the Admiralty have, at the suggestion of the Astronomer Royal (Sir William Christie), presented the Clockmakers’ Company with eight antique chronometers as additions to the company’s horological museum at the Guildhall”

A fine historical timepiece by one of the most famous of all chronometer makers, with much recorded history on numerous admiralty ships.