Nicholas Vallin Early before dawn on St Bartholomew’s Day, 24 August 1572, Huguenots gathered peacefully in Paris to celebrate the marriage of their leader, Henry of Navarre, to Princess Margaret, the sister of King Charles IX of France. Instead of celebration, the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, in which Catholics indiscriminately murdered Huguenots, took place. By some accounts, it was the King’s powerful mother, Catherine de’ Medici, who ordered the infamous event. By the end of the French Wars of Religion, some 300,000 Protestants had been murdered, and many had fled the Continent to escape the carnage and evade persecution. The mob violence and killings that erupted that day spread throughout France and beyond during the late 1500s, and Protestants all over Europe feared for their safety. Amongst these were the Flemish Protestant clockmaker John Vallin (born around 1535, d. 1603) and his family. John was originally from Ruyssell (now Lille) in Flanders. In 1567, he made an astronomical clock in Brussels. Prior to this clock’s making, around 1565, his son Nicholas was born.[1] It is widely assumed that John taught Nicholas the art of clockmaking while the family was in Lille and Brussels. Then, in 1590, the Vallin family emigrated to London. Queen Elizabeth I, a staunch Protestant herself who saw the benefits of gaining a skilled workforce of artisans and encouraging religious tolerance, especially welcomed the immigration to England of skilled Huguenot craftsmen such as the Vallins. Soon after the Vallin family arrived in London, Nicholas married Elizabeth Rendtmeersters at the Austin Friars Dutch Church in the Broad Street Ward of the City of London. The church was established by King Edward VI under royal charter as a ‘strangers church’ – an independent Protestant church established by foreigners in England. In 1631, the Austin Friars Dutch Church was still serving as a safe haven of worship for Continental Protestants when clockmaker Ahasuerus Fromanteel joined its congregation. His son John Fromanteel was baptised there, and in 1675 John presented the Church with a three-train quarter-striking walnut longcase.[2] Regrettably, the Church, along with the clock, was destroyed in 1943 by German bombers during the Blitz of the Second World War. As luck would have it, all church records had been sent away a few days prior to the bombing to be stored in safety outside London, and details concerning these early clockmaking families have survived. At the time of its destruction, the Austin Friars Dutch Church was the oldest Dutch-language strangers church in the world. Nicholas and his wife set up home together in the Parish of St Ann’s in Blackfriars, where he probably had a workshop. Very few clocks and watches made by Vallin during his short life have survived. Each of them is special. There is the engraved striking square horizontal table clock known as the Cummer Vallin.[3] Made around 1595, this extraordinary horizontal hour-striking table clock has a case made wholly of mercury gilt brass. Its dial has a silver champlevé chapter ring and single hour hand above the pierced hour-bell housing. Each side features an engraved tableau in perspective view: a tree, a windmill, a castle, and three arches – a bridge can be glimpsed through the central archway. The movement plates are held between four square-section baluster pillars with bases secured to the bottom plate. The going train has a chain-driven conical fusee to even out the spring torque, while the strike train is driven by a fixed steel barrel. Vallin also made the earliest known musical clock in Britain. This is the musical wall clock known as the Carillon Clock in the British Museum (Museum number 1958,1006.2139). Its wrought-iron frame has a silvered chapter ring with Roman hours and quarters, and with quatrefoil half-hours markers. The inner minute ring has Roman quarter-hour and similar quatrefoil markings for the 7½ minute half quarters. Its gilt brass dial plate also features a perspective design and is engraved N VALLIN 1598 on the base. Its movement is divided into three weight-driven trains: the going train; the music train, which plays every quarter hour; and the hour train, which strikes the hour on each hour. The verge escapement is controlled by an inertial balance wheel with hour and minute hands (the actual 0–60 minutes are not engraved). The hour-striking is controlled by the iron countwheel on the outside of the rear of the movement. At the end of each quarter hour, the 13 tuned bells play from a pinned carillon with pull wires up to the bell hammers. A pinned carillon is a revolving brass cylinder with pins set in a pattern on its surface. Each pin corresponds to a musical note. The duration of the tune slowly increases to specify each quarter hour. The inclusion of a minute hand on the Carillon Clock is unusual. During this early period of clockmaking, the timekeeping qualities of clocks were usually so limited that time could not be kept accurately to the minute. Because of this, most clocks had only single hour hands that facilitated the reading of time within the correct quarter. Minute hands only became reliable only after the invention of the domestic pendulum clock in 1656. The inclusion of a minute hand on this clock suggests that Vallin must have been quite confident in his design ability. Vallin's complicated Astronological Table Clock, made around 1600, is a triumph of design – a fabulous miniature astronomical masterpiece that can only have been made for a highly elite personage.[4] Reports state that Queen Elizabeth I herself would not get out of bed in the morning until her Royal Astrologer had told her fortune. Could readings facilitated by this little clock have been used for that purpose? Vallin created superb watches as well. Those that have survived include an enamelled case watch, made around 1600 (Acc. No. 17.190.1475). This exquisite watch is made in the shape of an ensign of the English Order of the Garter, and the case of this watch depicts Saint George fighting the dragon. There is also a drum clock watch with alarm that has a passing hour strike of a single bell in a pierced and engraved gilt case (Acc. No. 17.190.1476). Both are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Vallin was active as a clockmaker in London for just 13 years. What should have been a long and brilliant career was curtailed by a virulent outbreak of plague in London in 1603. The Vallin household was tragically affected. The pestilence first killed Nicholas’ father, John, and then shortly thereafter, Nicholas was struck down and died on 17 September 1603. He was not quite 40 years old. Nicholas’ two journeymen John Archer and John Leyns, also quickly succumbed to plague, dying just a few days after their master. Only the women of the Vallin household survived: Nicolas’ three daughters and his wife, Elizabeth. Just a year later, in 1604, Elizabeth remarried. She wed a local tailor named Gerart Cosin in the same Austin Friars Church where she had married Nicholas. You can learn more about the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre, the Huguenot diaspora, and Huguenot artisans like the Vallins in the Clocktime article Huguenot contributions to London clockmaking. End Notes [1] Loomes 2014, 447. [2] Ibid [3] Coming soon to Clocktime; Carter 2022, 10–17, Catalogue No. 2; Taylor et al. 2019, 8, Exhibit No. 1:3; Taylor et al. 2020, 9, Exhibit No. 1:2. [4] Exhibited on Clocktime; Garnier and Hollis 2018, 123, Catalogue No. 2; Taylor et al. 2019, 7, Exhibit No. 1:2; Taylor et al. 2020, 10, Exhibit No. 1:3. References Carter, J. 2021. The John C Taylor Collection: Part III (Selling Exhibition Catalogue, Carter Marsh & Co). Winchester: Carter Marsh & Co. Garnier, R. and Hollis, L. 2018. Innovation & Collaboration: The early development of the pendulum clock in London. Isle of Man: Fromanteel Ltd. Loomes, B. 2014. Clockmakers of Britain: 1286 – 1700. Mayfield, Ashbourne: Mayfield Books. Taylor, J. C. and K. Leith (with contributions by T. Phillipson). 2019. The Luxury of Time: Clocks from 1550–1750. Isle of Man: Fromanteel Ltd. Taylor, J. C. and K. Leith (with contributions from T. Phillipson and K. Neate). 2020. The Luxury of Time: Clocks from 1500–1800. Isle of Man: Fromanteel Ltd. Further Reading Britten, F.J. 1986. Old Clocks and Watches and Their Makers: A history of styles in clocks and watches and their mechanisms. London: Bloomsbury Books. Darken, J. (editor). 2003. Horological Masterworks: English 17th century clocks from private collections. London: Antiquarian Horological Society. Jagger, C. 1988. The Artistry of the English Watch. London, Newton Abbot: David & Charles, especially p. 309. Loomes, B. 2006. Watchmakers and Clockmakers of the World. London: N.A.G. Press. Taylor, J. C. and Van Kersen, F. 2004. Huygens’ Legacy: The golden age of the pendulum clock. Isle of Man: Fromanteel Ltd.