What is a “Jack,” and what was he doing on the top of Southwold Church?
Who owned Death’s-head watches inscribed with scenes from Judgment Day (surely one of the creepiest 16th Century Memento Mori around)?
Are you curious about the life and times of famous 17th and 18th Century horologists? Wondering if there is there any evidence that women were employed as horologists during this era?
F.J. Britten’s Old Clocks and Watches & Their Makers is an exhaustive 750+ page tome with answers to these questions and many, many others. It lists 10,000 clock and watch makers and includes 700 illustrations of spectacular timepieces.
This 1904 book, originally part of the Wellesley College Astronomy Library and now in the Science Library collection, was digitized by the Open Content Alliance in their Boston Public Library facility. Wellesley College, as part of its membership in the Boston Library Consortium, has contributed more than 4500 items to the Internet Archive. Old Clocks and Watches & Their Makers has been downloaded from the Internet Archive more than 6300 times, making it one of our top downloaded titles.