A POSSIBLY UNIQUE MUSICAL LANTERN CLOCK

The dial: 10 1/2in. square brass dial with cherub mask spandrels, the brass chapter ring signed Tho Archar Moreton Inma^his, with single outer line, Roman chapters between fine tridents, and twin inner lines with quarter marking, enclosing a matted centre with single pierced steel hand

The movement:  With posted frame surmounted with four vase-shaped finials, and a large bell with cutaway section for the carillon carriage, supported by a quatrefoil strap and turned finial, three train movement with anchor escapement, hourly strike from an internal countwheel and musical movement on a carillon of eight bells with eight shaped hammers with a secondary countwheel on the central rear post, played from a wooden barrel with steel pins and brass wheel work

The case: In a later oak case with a moulded pediment above dentil ornament, with glazed door flanked by Corithian columns, above teh trunk with rectangular panel door outlined with a parquetry design, on stepped base inlaid with a marquetry foliate oval
205cm high

This magnificent and rare clock by Thomas Archer is charmingly signed using a variant of the family surname. It is highly likely that authorship can be attributed to the father: it may, however, be by his first-born of the same Christian name, or possibly even by them both!  

Thomas Archer (b. 1641), a blacksmith and gunsmith, (sometimes written Archar or Archard) lived in Moreton-in-the-Marsh. He died in 1721. His eldest child was also Thomas (b. 1670) and followed his father in the blacksmith and gunsmith trade at Moreton. In the father’s Will of October 1720 (Thomas Snr.) he leaves his tools to be shared between his two sons, Walter (b. 1674 - d. 1742) and Charles (b. 1676). The implication of this is that Thomas (Jnr.) had predeceased his father by this date. Walter and Charles are known to have moved from Moreton in the last years of the 17^th Century and worked as partners in Stow-on-the-Wold.  A good deal has been written about the Archers by Loomes and Smith.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
Barnaby Smith, The Archer Family of Stow,  Antiquarian Horology, Winter 1998, p. 345-352.

Brian Loomes, Clocks, January 1986, January 1989,  October 2000, September 2001, April 2002, June 2011 and March 2012, for a variety of articles on the Archers.

Brian Loomes, Clockmakers of Britain 1286-1700, Ashbourne 2014, p. 17.

Antiquarian Horological Society, Time and Place, English Country Clocks 1600-1840, an Exhibition at the Museum of the History of Science, University of Oxford, November 2006.  See page 81 for a musical movement by Edward Bilbie of Chew Stoke of around the same date.