Henry Pearson, Clockmaker of Dore
We’re going to talk about the life and works of Henry Pearson, who lived in Dore in the first half of the eighteenth century. He made clocks. We know this because we have seen several of the clocks; indeed at the start of 2021 Dore Village Society owned two of them. Now a third one has turned up, and is back in Dore where it was made nearly 300 years ago. Apart from the clocks, the search for Pearson among historical records has continued for 25 years in Dore, with limited success. The acquisition of another Pearson clock has inspired our Archives Research Group to take another look at the records available online, and below Myfanwy Lloyd Jones tells us what we now know about Henry, his family and residence in Dore. First, Nick Payne describes and gives details of the clocks that we have access to.
Seven Pearsons are now known in Sheffield 17, and other examples have been spotted further afield. One of the clocks in the DVS office was repatriated from the USA twenty years ago, and another was found in New Zealand where, as far as we know, it remains to this day. The ‘new’ clock, which only came from Wirksworth, might sound like it never travelled very far. In fact it was bought by the last owner from a dealer in Somerset (now deceased) who had acquired it at auction in Bath.
We don’t know, are unlikely ever to know, how many clocks Henry made, nor how many of them have survived to the present day. We will likely never know how or why his clocks finished up in such distant places.
As far as Dore to Door is concerned, the first reference to Pearson clocks was in 1996, almost 25 years ago. A reader wrote asking for information about Mr. Pearson, as he had recently acquired one of the timepieces. A check of Town Hall records found that Pearson was registered as a clockmaker of Dore in 1740, but little else. We didn’t even know his first name at that time. Remember that in 1996 hardly any information was available online compared to today. Over to Nick.
Time Keeping in Dore – and The Pearson Clock
In the ninth century, when we first have mention of Dore as a location on the border of Mercia (conquered by Ecgbert in 825) and Northumbria, there were few options for telling the time. Most common was to observe where the sun was in the sky – or measure more accurately with a sundial. At night the movement of the stars could be used, and the burning of a candle was reputed to have been used by King Alfred as a simple measure of the passing of the hours. However, we have to wait another 500 years until the fourteenth century when mechanical clocks were first produced.
It would, however, have been rare to find a mechanical clock outside a major church until at least the sixteenth century. By the seventeenth century the great advance in time-keeping accuracy, the pendulum escapement, had been invented and introduced. And it is by the eighteenth century that the “Golden Age” of English clock making got under way.
Not only were there major makers in London and the large cities, but even small towns and villages might have a local clock maker. This takes us to Dore’s own clock maker, Henry Pearson. We know most about his long case or “Grandfather” clocks and the latest one to arrive back home to Dore is an interesting example.
Long case clocks began being made in England in the seventeenth century and the reason for the case was originally to protect the driving weights and the moving pendulum from draughts, household pets (and children!). Most had what clock makers call a “Royal (or Seconds) Pendulum”, just over a yard but just under a metre in length which conveniently swings from left to right in exactly one second. Strictly the “Period” of the pendulum is 2 seconds, being the time for it to complete a full cycle of left to right and back again.
These long case clocks are usually described as 8 day or 30 hour depending on the time they will run before they needed to be wound once more. The very simplest clock would just measure the time, but most also strike the number of hours on a bell. Additional “Complications” (a technical term in clock making to describe extras) include a date dial, an indicator of the moon phase, and even dials showing the time and height of the tides. Decorative complications include rocking ships, or other little animations such as a rural scene when a moving arm is shown on a farmworker harvesting the crops.
Dore’s latest Pearson clock to return home was made in the eighteenth century – probably around 1740. It is a 30 hour clock needing winding by opening the front and pulling a chain to raise the single weight every day. Thirty hours gives some leeway in winding time so that it can be wound, for example, in the morning of one day, but will still be running by the evening of the next day. The same (continuous) winding chain goes around the wheels driving the time keeping and striking mechanisms, so both parts of the clockwork (time keeping and striking) get wound at once. This type of 30 hour movement was often used on the earlier “Lantern Clocks” which were made from the start of the seventeenth century.
Although many clocks by this time had both a minute hand and an hour hand, our latest example only has a single (hour) hand. The pendulum mechanism would be able to keep time quite accurately enough if well adjusted to be correct to a minute or two each week, and the addition of a minute hand does not add greatly to the complexity (and hence cost) of the clock. However, because the dial is relatively large, it is a simple matter to read off the time to the nearest 5 minutes so maybe that was considered enough.
The clock face or dial is made largely of brass, with a “silvered” metal circle, the “Chapter Ring”, for the black Roman numerals and subdivisions of each hour. The date wheel is also of the style of bright metal backing with black divisions and numbers for the date. Either side of the VI in the chapter ring, the name “Pearson” – “Of Dore” is clearly shown.
As is characteristic of clock dials of this shape and date, there are rounded triangular decorations made of brass - “Spandrels or Spandrel-corners” - in each of the fours corners. There is little question that brass spandrels such as these are the domain of another trade other than that of the clockmaker – namely that of the brassfinisher. Such corner pieces in the rough state were held in stock by brassfinishers of the eighteenth century in considerable quantities, and the custom was in all probability for the country maker to obtain a supply from London. That the makers of corner pieces were comparatively few in number is suggested by the small variety of patterns which are found on clocks made at this time. The design of those on the Pearson of Dore clock is consistent with a date of around 1730-40.
The single (hour) hand of black steel is more reminiscent of the type of hand found on earlier Lantern clocks; but hands were much more likely to be individually made from filing out from a piece of steel rather than bought in. Associated with the single hour hand is the fact that the main divisions on the Chapter ring are of quarters (15 minutes), each further subdivided into three, corresponding to 5 minute intervals. By contrast, on a more typical clock of this period with a minute as well as an hour hand, there would be 5 subdivisions between each hour for the minute hand to show individual minutes.
Finally, what seems to be a characteristic feature of Pearson of Dore clocks is the presence of three sets of concentric circle designs in the brass dial inside the Chapter ring. At first glance one might think the two left and right are to protect the winding holes if the clock was of an 8-day key wound construction involving separately winding the mechanism to make the clock keep time (the “Going Train”), and that for striking the hours (the “Striking Train”). Moreover, the top circle looks in exactly the place where a small seconds hand might be expected to go round.
Some say that makers put these features onto their simpler 30 hour clocks to make them look more elaborate and expensive than they were. Perhaps this is too unkind, however, and they were there simply because the dial plate was of a standard type purchased from a brassfinisher with the capability of being used in different ways as required.
Henry Pearson of Dore, Cutler and Clockmaker
So, Henry started his working life as a cutler, and of the few known records relating to his adult life, two refer to him only as a cutler. In 1749-50, Daniel Pearson, a yeoman of Woodthorpe, Dronfield, and his wife Elizabeth conveyed property to “Henry Pearson of Doar in the parish and county aforesaid, cutler” for the sum of £138. And on 25th March 1762 “Henry Pearson of Dore… cutler” mortgaged it to husbandman Daniel Pearson the younger of Holmesfield for the sum of £50.
Fortunately, a document of 9th February 1759 makes it clear that Henry Pearson the cutler was also Henry Pearson the clockmaker: “Henry Pearson of Dore, Cutler and Clockmaker” conveyed a close of land in Dore to “John Turner, Slater and Smelter” (Chatsworth Archives ref L/55/15). The land in question, “Ashfordlong” (Ashfurlong) Dole, occupied by Martha Flint, changed hands for £25. It appears to be part of the package of properties which Daniel Pearson of Dore (presumably the man referred to in the conveyance of 1749-50 as Daniel Pearson of Holmesfield) obtained from Prudence Goddard of Tenters near Whiteley Wood, Sheffield, on 26th March 1729 for £130. The properties in Dore consisted of a messuage (a dwelling house with its outbuildings and immediate land) previously owned by blacksmith John Unwin, a barn and a cowshed and two closes called “the Barne Crofts” containing three acres, and two doles (shares in a common field) containing one acre in the “Ashforelong” (Ashfurlong) Doles. The messuage has been identified as the premises now called Woodbine Cottages, at the junction of the modern Dore Road and Vicarage Lane; the Barn Crofts lay to the east.
A document of 22nd April 1780 refers to Henry simply as “Henry Pearson of Dore … clockmaker”, perhaps suggesting that while in 1759 he was engaged in both cutlery and clockmaking, in his later years he concentrated entirely on clockmaking. The document suggests that he was now retiring from business (and not before time: he would have been in his late 70s, perhaps even 80). He transferred his property in Dore to his nephew, yeoman Daniel Pearson the younger of Holmesfield, in return for an annuity of £12 (presumably his pension). The property which changed hands consisted of two messuages with shop or smithy at Dore, two closes containing three acres in the occupation of Robert Unwin, and all Henry’s furniture and household goods, stock-in-trade, tools, and implements. The messuages and closes appear to be those bought by Daniel Pearson of Dore in 1729 (Henry had already sold Ashfurlong Dole to John Turner). In 1729, there was only one messuage, so the reference to two suggests that Henry had divided the original messuage into two or, perhaps less probably, had bought or built another property of which we have no other record.
We have no evidence that Henry ever married, and the document of 1780 certainly suggests that he had no surviving sons. His recorded transactions were with two men named Daniel Pearson. We know from the document of 1780 that one of these, Daniel Pearson the younger of Holmesfield, was Henry’s nephew, and he is presumably the Daniel Pearson the younger of Holmesfield who appeared in the mortgage of 1762. He would be of an appropriate age to be the Daniel, son of Daniel Pearson of Dore, whose baptism on 23rd April 1732 is recorded in the Dronfield Parish Register. This Daniel Pearson of Dore, who in 1729 purchased property in Dore which seems to have been conveyed to Henry in 1749/50, would thus be Henry’s brother, known by 1749 as Daniel Pearson of Woodthorpe, yeoman.
Myfanwy Lloyd Jones & Nick Payne
additional material by John Dunstan
Source: Dore to Door magazine, issue 142, Summer 2021