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31513C.W
MUDGE & DUTTON, LONDON.
AN ELEGANT ENGLISH MAHOGANY WALL CLOCK WITH SILVERED DIAL OF THE FINEST QUALITY BY THESE EMINENT MAKERS. CIRCA 1770.

The mahogany case has a cast brass turned bezel closing onto a nicely shaped wooden surround and is fitted with a lock. There are shaped ears to the chisel footed bottom of the case with a full length opening door. The chisel bottom rather than being straight, as is the case with many of these clocks, is well shaped in an ogee fashion.

The 14" silvered dial is ornately signed "Tho. Mudge Willm Dutton, London" and has Roman numerals for the hours with Arabic numerals outside the minute ring. The blued steel ornate spade style hands with small cut outs are a particularly nice feature.

The substantial eight day timepiece movement has four nicely shaped knopped pillars and fine wheelwork with four crossings. It has recoil anchor escapement and gut fusee with the normal stop work. The brass pendulum is suspended from a regulator style backcock mounted on the rear of the movement. The movement is mounted into the case on a seatboard.

Length: 26.5" (67 cms.)

Price band: F

The next ten years were extremely successful for Mudge who concentrated mainly on watches, some of outstanding quality, for important personages such as the King of Spain. He also made some complex longcase clocks, including the sidereal and meantime regulator with four year calendar now in the British Museum.

In 1754 he made the remarkable spring clock, now in the British Museum, which had a train remontoire, temperature compensation and a detached escapement. This could almost have been a candidate for the Longitude Prize.

Mudge was primarily motivated throughout his life by his desire to excel and achieve advances in the field of horology rather than by any financial gain and this is best illustrated by his failure to patent or develop the lever escapement. When questioned on it he wrote "as to the honour of the invention, I must confess, I am not at all solicitous about it: whoever would rob me of it does me honour. " ³

In 1755 Mudge took William Dutton (born c. 1720 in Marston Buckinghamshire), also an apprentice of Graham, into partnership and it is likely that most of the regulators were made after this time. Unfortunately during the 1760s his health deteriorated and by the end of the decade he had decided to join his brother John, a well known doctor, in Plymouth, Devon, despite the fact that this would mean the loss of his contacts with, and assistance from, the myriad of ancillary horological craftsmen available in the metropolis.

Mudge’s departure left Dutton as the sole owner of the business; but he continued to use their combined names for several years, and indeed, a considerable number of the regulators signed "Mudge & Dutton," would have been made by him although it is impossible to tell which. However by around 1775 he was trading under his own name. William Dutton died in 1794 and the business was continued by his sons Matthew and Thomas who was apprenticed in 1771, gained his Freedom of the Clockmakers’ Company in 1779 and joined his father, and rose to become Master in 1800. He retired c. 1825.

It was in Devon that Mudge was to produce his celebrated marine timekeepers, despite his poor health and lack of assistance. The first was completed in 1774 and as a result of this he received an initial award in 1777 of £500; however the Board of Longitude required at least two machines to be submitted for assessment and these Mudge managed to complete in 1779. In 1793, a year before he died he was awarded £3,000.

Although Mudge’s chronometers, particularly No. 1, performed very well they were far too complex and beautifully made to be a commercial proposition, costing at least twice as much as those made by Earnshaw & Arnold.

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