First night clock commission Although night clocks were probably around earlier, the first recorded commission of this type of clock has been dated to 1655, when Pope Alexander VII ordered Cardinal Farnese to provide a clock which would show the hours ‘at night and in silence’. The three brothers from Umbria who were hired for the task of creating it are now credited with inventing the wandering-hour dial characteristic of this type of clock. The first contemporary evidence of a night clock in England appears about 10 years later.[1] It is from an entry in Samuel Pepys’ diary dated 24 June 1664. Pepys writes, After dinner to White Hall and there met with Mr. Pierce and he showed me the Queen’s bed-chamber with a clock by her bed-side wherein a lamp burns that tells her the time of the night at any time. While Pepys’ citation suggests that the night clock was an innovation at that time, the night clock to which he refers had just been supplied to Queen Catherine of Braganza by her appointed royal clockmaker, James East (who was the son of King Charles II’s royal clockmaker, Edward East). End Note [1] Carter 2021, 48. Reference Carter, J. 2021. The John C Taylor Collection: Part I (Selling Exhibition Catalogue, Carter Marsh & Co). Winchester: Carter Marsh & Co. Pepys, S., R. Latham and W. Matthews. The Diary of Samuel Pepys: A new and complete translation. London: G. Bell and Sons. Further Reading Oli Cooke, Curator of Horology, The British Museum, London, https://blog.britishmuseum.org/time-to-shine-a-17th-century-night-clock/ Image Credit Table night clock by Pietro Tomasso Campani, Rome, 1683. Museum number: 1958,1006.2128. © The Trustees of the British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, night clock; clock-case | British Museum
