Thwaites and Reed
A Clerkenwell clockmaker founded in 1740, linked to the Horse Guards turret clock and some remarkable museum reconstructions.
Ainsworth Thwaites and the Clerkenwell workshop
The firm was founded in 1740 by Ainsworth Thwaites as Ainsworth Thwaites and Co., according to the archive catalog AIM25; Grace's Guide spells his first name Aynsworth. Grace's Guide to British Industrial History credits him with the turret clock at Horse Guards Parade in London, which it says was still working more than 200 years later.
His son John Thwaites, born in 1757, headed the business from 1780 and served as Master of the Clockmakers' Company in 1815, 1819 and 1820. In 1816 he went into partnership with George Jeremiah Reed, and the firm took the name Thwaites and Reed.
For well over two centuries it stayed in Clerkenwell, London's historic clockmaking district: on Rosoman Street from 1740 to 1880, then on Bowling Green Lane from 1881 until about 1974.
Turret clocks, instruments and museum work
Thwaites and Reed made clocks and scientific instruments. Grace's Guide describes a gear-cutting machine the firm built more than a century before the 1960s that was still in use then, and which featured in Aubrey Wilson's 1967 book London's Industrial Heritage.
Grace's Guide says a Mr. Buggins joined in 1856 and that his descendants stayed involved for more than 100 years. AIM25 says the firm became a limited company around 1950.
Its later work includes some unusual commissions. The Science Museum Group, which describes Thwaites and Reed Limited as a clock maker and model maker, holds its 1974 reconstruction of Dondi's astronomical clock, a two-thirds scale copy of the Hampton Court astronomical clock dials, and a London and Birmingham Railway clock.
That railway clock, made in London in 1837, is a master regulator with an eight-day movement, a jeweled deadbeat escapement and a silvered brass dial. The museum says it was used to standardize timekeeping and set the watches and clocks along the line, and it lists the clock in the Great Hall of the National Railway Museum.
The British Museum holds a long-case watchman's clock, a clock made between 1968 and 1970, and 41 clock components made by the firm.
See also: the wheels, arbors and levers of a clock movement on OnlineClock.app.
How to identify and date a Thwaites clock
Early clocks may be signed A and J Thwaites rather than Thwaites and Reed. A 1973 article in the journal Antiquarian Horology by G.T.E. Buggins and A.J. Turner, The Context of Production, Identification and Dating of Clocks by A. and J. Thwaites, is the standard starting point for identifying and dating the firm's early work, so note any number engraved on the movement.
The firm's records are unusually complete. Daybooks, ledgers, order books, repair books and other records from 1780 to 1958 were deposited with the Guildhall Library and are now at London Metropolitan Archives under reference CLC/B/215, though some volumes have access conditions. AIM25 says they were deposited through members of the Buggins family in 1952 and 1971, and a school exercise book belonging to John Thwaites survives separately in the same archive.
Not every clock with the name was made in the workshop. The British Museum holds a chiming bracket clock that Thwaites and Reed retailed but which its record says was made in China, so check the movement as well as the dial.
The firm today
Thwaites and Reed left Clerkenwell for Sussex around 1975, according to AIM25. Today a company called Thwaites and Reed Clockmakers Ltd, incorporated in 2002 with an address in Saltdean, East Sussex, is listed as active at Companies House, with a confirmation statement filed in January 2026. A conservation trades directory lists Thwaites and Reed at the same Saltdean address, offering tower clock repair and maintenance and antique clock restoration. The sources we found do not spell out the legal link between this company and the historic firm.
For owners and researchers, the firm's long paper trail is its most useful legacy. Between the serial number table for early clocks and nearly two centuries of daybooks and order books, a Thwaites clock can be easier to trace than many.
Questions people ask
How do I tell how old my Thwaites clock is?
Note the signature and any number on the movement. Clocks signed A and J Thwaites are covered by a 1973 Antiquarian Horology article on identifying and dating the firm's clocks, and the firm's records from 1780 to 1958 are at London Metropolitan Archives.
Is Thwaites and Reed still in business?
A company named Thwaites and Reed Clockmakers Ltd, based in Saltdean, East Sussex, was listed as active at Companies House in 2026 and offers tower clock repair and antique clock restoration. The historic firm moved from London to Sussex around 1975.