John Harvey John Harvey is an early English clockmaker who most likely assisted and accompanied Thomas Dallam to Istanbul to deliver a lavish organ clock to the Ottoman Grand Sultan Muhammed III at Queen Elizabeth I’s behest. He is also the father of the lantern clockmaker Robert Harvey. John Harvey was probably born around 1557. He was apprenticed to the London clockmaker Peter Medcalfe through the Clothworkers Company in London around 1571 and appears to have obtained his freedom around 1578. Exactly when Harvey joined the Clothworkers’ Company is unclear, as there are several entries which might relate to him.[1] Harvey appears to have been based in Oxford during the early part of his career. This goes towards explaining a connection to the organ maker Thomas Dallam, who was also based in the city and had created organs for some of the Oxford Colleges. There is also the possibility that Dallam and Harvey met earlier in London during their apprenticeships. Harvey married Mary around 1580, and the couple had two sons Robert, born around 1580, and Thomas, born around 1594. It is assumed that John provided Robert with most of his training. The Harvey family lived in St Botolph’s Parish in London. None of John Harvey’s clocks has survived. In 1599, Harvey appears to have undertaken a grand adventure at Queen Elizabeth I’s behest. Dallam was one of the finest organ builders of the day, and he had been royally commissioned to create a magnificent organ clock as a gift for the powerful Ottoman Sultan Muhammad III, known as the ‘Grand Turk’ in England. Even though Dallam may have had some knowledge of clockmaking through his apprenticeship with the Blacksmiths Company, he recruited ‘my mate Harvie, who was the engineer’ to design and build the clockwork.[2] Dallam and Harvey’s organ clock was a highly complex, automated mechanical marvel, standing at 16 feet. It cost no more than £550 and contained 300 ounces of silver. The clock was centred around an organ keyboard, with the organ pipes above the keyboard. Centred within the pipes was the dial face of the clock, with a trumpeter figure on either side. All this was surmounted by a bejewelled figure of Queen Elizabeth I, replete with 45 diamonds, emeralds and rubies opulently placed around her. Above all this, was a holly bush filled with blackbirds and thrushes which were automated to sing and flutter their wings. The clock had a duration of up to six hours and struck the hour from one to 24. A tune was chimed on its 16 bells. When the tune ended, the automated trumpeters would blow a fanfare on their silver trumpets. The organ was automated to play by itself, as if by magic. It could also be played manually. The organ clock was a diplomatic gift to the Sultan from Queen Elizabeth. The Sultan refused to acknowledge the English ambassador, and Elizabeth used the gift as a means of persuading him to receive the Ambassador and perhaps to get him on side for her war against Spain. Additionally, the recently formed Levant Company, which probably financed the royal commission of the clock, wished to endear themselves to the Sultan to gain access to Eastern trade routes.[3] On 9 February 1598 or 1599, Dallam and Harvey boarded the Hector at Gravesend. It was a false start, as storms forced the ship to pull into Dartmouth and Plymouth, and it was not until 16 March that they set sail for Turkey. During a stopover in Algiers, the party inadvertently offended the King of Algiers, who held his authority under the Sultan.[4] Ignorant of the subtleties of gifting practices in Islamic culture, they failed to adequately respond to a gift from the Algerian King. This did not bode well for the receipt of Queen Elizabeth’s gift. When the ship reached Constantinople in August 1598 or 1599, the clock was in desperate need of repair. It had suffered from the rocking of the ship, temperature fluctuations, and exposure to sea water. Apparently, the automata were no longer working, the glue had melted, many of the organ’s pipes were broken, and the clock’s cabinet had been shaken apart. When the Ambassador, Mr. William Aldridge, saw it, he said that it was not worth its cost. It took Dallam and Harvey two weeks to make the necessary repairs. The clock was finally delivered to the Sultan’s ‘surralya’ (a type of temple) in his palace on 11 September 1598 or 1599. Dallam and Harvey set to work re-assembling the clock, and it was ready by 15 September. The Sultan was away visiting his mother and would not return to see the clock until 25 September. A very anxious Dallam visited the clock daily, as he was keen to avoid the Sultan’s displeasure and the possibility of execution. On the morning of the 25th, Dallam went to the surralya with his ‘mate Harvie’, the engineer, as well as ‘Mr. Rowland Buckett the paynter, and Myghell Watson the joyner’.[5] Dallam and his assistants had to hide, as protocol did not allow them to set eyes on the Sultan. The Sultan arrived and the clock worked. He was so impressed that he asked them to run the clock again and even had Dallam brought in to explain how it worked. Dallam records that the Turkish workmen assisting him with the installation and assembly of the clock asked him ‘to stay with them always’, assuring him that the Sultan would give him two wives for his permanent service. They even stipulated that Dallam could choose two of the Sultan’s concubines, or that he could find two of the best virgins on his own.[6] The Queen’s Ambassador Henry Lello took this offer seriously and instructed Dallam to say that he already had a wife and children at home in England, which was a lie, as Dallam was unmarried. In this way, Dallam managed to avoid offending the Sultan by refusing the offer outright, and the Sultan reportedly released him from the offer with a smile. During their stay in Constantinople, the Sultan had Dallam and his assistants move the clock to a different location. During the reassembly, the Sultan and his concubines appeared unannounced. All the Turkish workers fled, as it was a grave offence to be in the bodily presence of the Sultan. To their horror, Dallam and one of his mates (perhaps Harvey) found themselves alone in the room with the Sultan, an offence worthy of the ultimate punishment: death by beheading. Dallam writes that they ran for their lives, barely escaping the clutches of the Sultan’s guard. The voyage home proved to be equally exciting. Dallam and his party left Turkey in November, sailed to Greece, travelled by horseback across land, and eventually boarded the Hector in January to sail to England. According to Dallam, he and his mates engaged in battles with Spanish galleons and endured storms that nearly sank their ship. They reached home on 1 May 1600. It took Dallam and Harvey about two full years to complete the Queen’s task. The entire story of this grand adventure is recorded in the Public Records Office. There is also Dallam's ‘Account of an Organ Carryed to the Grand Seignor Curious Matter’, which is known as Dallam’s Diary’.[7] For a transcription of some of Dallam’s description of the clock as well as additional details of the clock’s features see Loomes.[8] Visiting clockmakers from France and Switzerland reported that the Grand Turk’s organ clock was still functioning perfectly after many years. Since then, the whereabouts of Elizabeth’s lavish gift have been lost in time. There is a Clothmakers’ Company record from 1608 that mentions Thomas Harvey, John’s youngest son, being apprenticed to Robert (John’s older son). It describes Thomas as the son of John Harvey ‘deceased’. This record establishes a terminus ante quem (the latest possible date) for the death of John Harvey as 1608.[9] It is possible that he died on 1 September 1602. He was only about 45 years of age when he died. End Notes [1] Loomes 2013. [2] Bent 1892. [3] Loomes 2013; Wood 2015, 81. [4] Danson 2009, 641. [5] Bent 1892. [6] Danson 2009, 656. [7] Bent 1892; Danson 2009, 639. [8] It is most likely that the ‘Harvie’ who assisted Dallam was indeed John Harvey, as argued by horologist Dr John C. Taylor. It should be noted that that horologist Brian Loomes (2013) argues that it was Robert Harvey (John’s son) who assisted and travelled with Dallam, and Danson (2009, 647 and 650) cites two other Harveys identified by Dallam in his Diary: his ‘mate’, Michael Harvey, and ‘the joiner William Harvey’, who goes ashore with Dallam on Rhodes and tours the walls. [9] Loomes 2013. References Bent, T. (editor). 1892. Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant: I. The Diary of Master Thomas Dallam, 1599–1600. II. Extracts from the Diaries of Dr. John Covel, 1670–1679. With Some Account of the Levant Company of Turkey Merchants (Issue 87 of Works issued by the Hakluyt Society). New York, NY: B. Franklin. Danson, L. 2009. ‘The Sultan’s organ: presents and self-presentation in Thomas Dallam's "Diary"’ in Renaissance Studies 23(5): 639–658. Loomes, B. 2013. ‘Collecting antique clocks: Robert Harvey, maker of the first lantern clocks in Britain'. https://www.brianloomes.com/collecting/harvey/ Loomes, B. 2014. Clockmakers of Britain: 1286–1700. Mayfield, Ashbourne: Mayfield Books. Wood, J. L. 2015. ‘An organ’s metamorphosis: Thomas Dallam’s sonic transformations in the Ottoman Empire’ in Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 4: 81–105. Further Reading Britten, F. J. 1986. Britten’s Old clocks and watches and their makers: a history of styles in clocks and watches and their mechanisms (ninth edition). London: Bloomsbury Books. Jaggar, C. 1983. Royal Clocks: the British monarchy and its timekeepers 1300–1900. London: Robert Hale. Thompson, D. 2004. Clocks. London: British Museum Press. Wilson, M. 2020. ‘Gifts of imperfection: Elizabeth I and the politics of timepieces’ in Explorations in Renaissance Culture 46(1): 44–56.
