Carriage clock
A small, spring-driven travel clock with a carrying handle, developed in France in the early 1800s and later made in large numbers in Paris and beyond.
What a carriage clock is
A carriage clock is a small clock built to travel. It runs from a coiled mainspring and keeps time with a balance wheel instead of a pendulum, so it keeps going when it is picked up, packed or jostled. Most have a brass handle on top for carrying.
The classic form, as the British Museum describes it, is a metal-framed case with glass on all four sides and a handle above. Through the glass you can see the movement, and many examples add extras such as an alarm, a striking train or a button that repeats the last hour on demand.
Despite the name, these were not clocks fixed into carriages. They were portable clocks for people on the move, and some still have fitted leather traveling cases.
How it works
A pendulum only works when a clock stands still and level. A carriage clock replaces it with a balance, a small wheel that swings back and forth under the control of a fine hairspring, the same principle used in a pocket watch.
In many carriage clocks the escapement and balance are mounted together on a separate small plate, called a platform, set on top of the movement. The National Maritime Museum's Vulliamy carriage clock of about 1843, for example, has a lever platform escapement. Breguet's earliest example at the British Museum also uses a lever escapement.
Paul Garnier of Paris took a different route. In 1830 he received a French patent for what collectors call the chaff-cutter escapement, in which a pair of escape wheels straddles the balance staff and gives impulses to a small semicircular disc mounted on it. According to an NAWCC Bulletin article, it could keep time to within about a minute over a week's winding.
History
Spring-driven portable clocks without pendulums existed before the carriage clock, but the form we recognize is traditionally credited to the Paris workshop of Abraham-Louis Breguet. The British Museum says Breguet is said to have invented it and that his firm made carriage clocks between about 1812 and 1830. An NAWCC Bulletin article places Breguet's first examples earlier, around 1800, and the Frick Collection in New York holds a Breguet carriage clock dated 1811, so the exact start date is uncertain.
Breguet's clocks were expensive and, according to the NAWCC article, went mainly to royalty. The change came with Paul Garnier, who set up his own Paris business in the mid-1820s. The NAWCC authors credit his simpler product and quantity production with putting carriage clocks within reach of many more buyers; one of his early numbered clocks is dated 1834, and others date to about 1836. Garnier won a silver medal for his display of carriage clocks at the 1834 Paris Exhibition.
Garnier's numbering suggests his firm made about 6,000 clocks. Some of his unfinished movement frames were likely supplied by the Pons firm in the clockmaking town of Saint-Nicolas d'Aliermont in Normandy. The British Museum notes that London makers, among them James Ferguson Cole with his brother Thomas, and later Joseph Jump, copied Breguet's design, and the Vulliamy example below has a twin chain fusee movement rather than a simple spring barrel.
Famous makers and examples
The British Museum holds a silver carriage clock by Breguet et Fils, No. 3629, made in Paris in 1822 and sold on October 7 of that year to a Colonel Cook. It has a rounded hump-back case, an eight-day movement with a lever escapement, an alarm, a repeat that strikes the hours and half-quarters, a moon-phase display and a full calendar in a case about 15.5 cm tall.
The Frick's 1811 example, credited to Abraham-Louis Breguet and his son Antoine-Louis, is smaller at about 11 cm tall. Made of gilt bronze, silver and enamel, it shows the moon's age and phase and has an alarm that is set by the number of hours of sleep.
Garnier himself was born Jean-Paul Garnier in Epinal in 1801. At 19 he moved to Paris to work for the Lepine firm and study at Antide Janvier's clockmaking school, and about five years later he opened his own business. He died in 1869, and his son, also named Paul, carried the firm on.
Paul Garnier's early clocks often carried the names of the retailers who sold them, among them Dent, Guyerdet aine and Leroy et Fils. Under contract with the French Ministry of Works, Garnier also built an electrically operated master and slave clock system, which the NAWCC article describes as the first such system made for French railway stations.
On the English side, the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich owns a grande sonnerie carriage clock by Vulliamy of London, made around 1843. It strikes the quarters followed by the hour every fifteen minutes and still has its velvet-lined leather traveling case, with a glazed window for reading the dial.
See also: a simple alarm that runs in any browser tab on OnlineClock.app.
How to recognize one
Look for a small upright case, usually brass, with a carrying handle on top and glass panels on the front, sides and back. Breguet's finest pieces used a rounded case with silver chains instead, but the boxy four-glass case is by far the most common form.
Check whether it has a pendulum. A carriage clock never does; it keeps time with a balance wheel, often mounted on a separate platform above the movement, which is part of what makes it safe to carry.
Marks help date and place a clock. Most Garnier clocks with his own escapement are stamped P. G. Brevete on the backplate, nearly all are numbered, and the inscription Horloger de la Marine appears only after 1848. Some of his clocks have a small subsidiary dial for the alarm, numbered counterclockwise.
Maker names on the dial can be misleading, since retailers often signed clocks made by someone else, so check the backplate as well as the dial.
See also: small clocks sized for a desk or nightstand on OnlineClock.app.
Questions people ask
Who invented the carriage clock?
It is usually credited to Abraham-Louis Breguet in Paris. The British Museum says his firm made carriage clocks from about 1812 to 1830, the Frick holds one dated 1811, and some historians date his first examples to around 1800.
Why doesn't a carriage clock have a pendulum?
A pendulum needs a still, level clock. A carriage clock uses a balance wheel and hairspring, like a watch, so it keeps time while being carried.
What does grande sonnerie mean on a carriage clock?
It describes a striking system that sounds the quarters and then the hour every fifteen minutes, as on the Vulliamy carriage clock at the National Maritime Museum.