A rare mid-19th century mother-of-pearl-inlaid rosewood dial timepiece with revolving world time indication
James Cooke, Birmingham
The octagonal case with inlaid border backed by a deep box with curved top and bottom apertures (the doors now absent), with a wall hook at both poles. The 12-inch dial with hinged cast brass bezel, solid, painted dial plate with Arabic minute ring and 43 different world locations featuring a prominent arrow pointer and Greenwich Mean Time below 60; the rotating painted Roman hour dial with I-XII repeated twice around the circumference, one XII being labelled beneath as Midday and the other as Midnight with the centre of the dial carrying two antique globes; Europe, Asia, Africa, and part of Oceania on the left and New Zealand and the Americas on the right below a steel minute hand, both plates being marked REGISTERED DECR2ND 1856 3910. The gut (now synthetic) fusee movement consisting of four knopped and bevelled pillars with an anchor escapement. Ticking, but crutch broken. Together with the pendulum. 42.5cms (16.5ins) high.
Footnotes:
The writing on the dial 'Registered Decr 2nd 1856 3910' is in reference to a Useful Registered Design application (intellectual property copyright) taken out by James Cooke of Birmingham on 2 December of 1856. The category for the registered design is listed as 'Clock or fingerpiece dial plates'.

A dialmaker named James Cooke is listed as working in Birmingham from 1858-1880. Further, a dial making company was established named 'James Cooke and Son' in Birmingham in 1878, the proprietor having been in partnership with Edwin Howell since 1840 as 'Howell and Cooke'. James Cooke and Son would go on to make a new dial for the Shepherd clock at the Royal Observatory after the previous one suffered a bomb strike in October 1940. The new dial was installed in April/May 1947. James Cooke and Son was voluntarily wound up in 1980. Further information can be found on pages 84-90 of the March 2015 issue of the Antiquarian Horological Society Journal. An advert in the November 1953 Horological Journal for James Cooke and Son proclaims that they have been trading since 1840.

Interestingly, the hemispheres which form part of the dial seem to be painted versions of James Wilson's dial transfer hemisphere maps, which were used on 13' painted longcase dials for moon phase apertures (see The Longcase Clock Reference Book by John Robey pg. 602) around 1793/5. James Wilson was a Birmingham dial maker who traded from 1777 until his death in 1809. Another dial maker took over his premises but closed the business permanently in 1811/12. As the transfers James Wilson used on his longcase dials are the same size as those on this clock, it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that 28 years after closing, a partnership of dial makers used some old stock transfer plates to print the hemispheres for their copyrighted world time dial.

With grateful thanks to Tony Corsini of the British Library who was instrumental in tracing the Registered design mark to James Cooke & Sons.

See Bateman, D. (2015) 'The replacement of the war-damaged Shepherd dial at Greenwich by James Cooke & Son of Birmingham', Antiquarian Horology, Volume 36(1), pgs. 84-90 (Accessed 23 March 2022) and Birch, E. W., Tremayne, A. (1940)'Early Dial Makers', The Horological Journal, Volume 82(2), pgs. 62-63 (Accessed 23 March 2022).