An important George III period angle barometer with perpetual regulation of time, by the pre-eminent maker whose name was synonymous with this type of complex barometer.

The mahogany architectural stepped frame houses a mercury angled barometer to the left and an alcohol Fahrenheit thermometer with silvered scale to the right, each flanking a glazed frame around the well-preserved paper scales, entitled A Perpetual Regulation of Time. The well-preserved tables giving cylindrical, lunar, tidal and zodiacal information. The silvered angle scale to the barometer is signed F. Watkins, London and beneath the angled scale is a hygrometer.

Date: circa 1760

Height: 41 ½ in (105 cm)

* Francis Watkins is recorded as working at Sir Isaac Newton’s Head, 415 Charing Cross. He was apprenticed in 1737 to Nathanial Adams and became Free of the Spectacles Company in 1747 and a year later established his business in Charing Cross. Sir Nicholas Goodison, in his book ‘English Barometers’, states that the company “remained pre-eminent under several variations of the name until 1856 (Watkins and Smith, J. and W. Watkins, Watkins and Hill)”.

HW4917