In previous issues of the HWLHS Journal I’ve traced the story of Hertford’s clockmakers since the 17th century.1 This article rounds off the story by looking at the clockmakers who lived in Hertford during the 20th century. It also provides details about some of the public clocks which can be found in the town today.
Hertford’s watch and clock trade in the 20th century
The late 19th century was the “Golden Age” of the obituary column in the local press. A prominent Hertford tradesman could be assured that, following his death, the Hertfordshire Mercury would set out his life and work in considerable detail and in so doing, would indicate the inestimable service which he had given to the community. Such obituaries are, of course, of immense value to the local historian. Unfortunately, this tradition gradually ceased during the 20th century, and in recent decades the death of a former distinguished citizen often passes unremarked. Sometimes there is not even a death notice. On the other hand the present-day Mercury, unlike its Victorian counterpart, will sometimes make a feature of the life and times of a local character when there is some event or anniversary to celebrate (though such items are, of course, difficult to locate in the archives). We can also draw on the memories of local people, some of which have been recorded by Hertford Museum and the Hertford Oral History Group.
These various sources have been used to compile this account of Hertford’s clockmakers in the 20th century. It should be noted that, although these skilled craftsmen were still referred to as “clockmakers”, they no longer made new clocks and watches, but instead employed their expertise in maintenance and repair work. Several of the 20th century clockmakers had forbears who were prominent tradesmen in the town during the previous century, and their story was told in the December 2011 Journal. They include the Marks, Harry and Garrett families.
Evan Marks
Evan Marks
Evan Marks (1824-1904) ran a watchmaking and jewellery business at 14 Fore Street, and was a highly respected public figure in the town. After his death the business was run for a time by his unmarried daughter Alice and then by her kinsmen, the Ollis family. The business was removed to the adjacent premises at 12 Fore Street (page 42) in the early years of the 20th century. It finally closed in about 1988, by which time it was run by a Mr Chapman.
One of the people who worked for Alice Marks was John Bunyan. One of his duties was to get on his old “New Hudson All Weather” bicycle and go round winding up the clocks for the more well-to-do households in the district. His route would typically take in the Leslies at Epcombs, Hertingfordbury; then on to the Hon. Mrs Gibbs at Essendon Hill; and from there to Hatfield House where he would have to deal with some 110 clocks. He would then go on to Newgate Street, Cuffley and Ponsbury Park, and finally to Bayford, where he would wind up the dozen or so clocks belonging to Mr Powell.
Harry Harry
The Harry family’s clockmaking business was founded by Samuel Harry and came to occupy premises at 8 Fore Street (now 5 Parliament Square) in 1885. After Samuel’s death in 1887, the business was run by his widow Mary. His son Harry Ilott Harry (1875-1951) served his apprenticeship in Switzerland and later worked at Eton and Harrow, but by 1901 was back in Hertford and working for his mother. When she died in 1904, he took over the business and ran it till his own death in 1951.
Harry later took on his cousin Sidney Ilott as an assistant and Sidney went on running the business after Harry died. A barber, Ivan Watkins, occupied the adjoining premises and he later recalled that: “One day I went in the shop and there were these grandfather and grandmother clocks all round the shop. I said: ‘Tell me Mr Ilott, why have you got the clocks all telling different times?’ So he said: ‘Well, boy, if I’d got them all the same time, when they struck, the ceiling would come down!’” One of Sidney’s tasks was to take care of the clock on Shire Hall. According to Ivan Watkins: “He’d listen to the Shire Hall clock chiming and if it was a minute out he’d shut up the shop and go round and put it right. He used to say someone’s job could depend on it.” The business finally closed down when Sidney died in 1966.
Thomas Connell
Thomas Connell came to Hertford in the 1890s and established a prominent clockmaking business at 27 Maidenhead Street. He also ran a pawnbroker’s business at the rear. The manager Mr Brett and his family lived in extensive accommodation over the shop, while Thomas lived at 51 St Andrew Street. He was described as “quiet, reserved and [one who] played no prominent part in public affairs, though invited to do so.”
Sidney Garrett
The Garrett family came to Hertford in the mid-19th century and eventually set up their clockmaking business at 5 Maidenhead Street. The last family member to manage the business was Sidney Garrett. He died in 1951 at the age of 45, leaving a widow and three children. His obituary in the Mercury says nothing about his work as a craftsman, but concentrates instead on his activities as a Freemason. In this regard, he was apparently a popular member of the King Bruce Lodge of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes. His funeral was conducted by the Chaplain to the Lodge while the Lodge Brothers intended to erect a plaque in his memory.
William Waller
William Waller was born in Woolwich in 1845, the son of a clockmaker. He arrived in Hertford in the late 1870s and became manager of Simson’s in Market Place. He lived in Priory Street and then St. John’s Street before moving in the 1890s to 5 Villiers Street. It was possibly at about the same time that he started his own business in premises at 31 St. Andrew Street.
Hugh Mills
Hugh Samuel Mills was born in 1900 and was brought up at 11 Gas House Road (now Marshgate Drive). In 1913 he was bound apprentice to Harry Harry for 5 years. By 1930 he had his own watchmaking business and had taken over the premises at 31 St. Andrew Street from William Waller. Peter Ruffles still wears the watch which he bought at Hugh Mills’ shop for his 21st birthday “with funds from Aunt Nora next door.” He recalls that Hugh was rather mocked by his peers for being henpecked by his wife.
One day he’d nipped out of the shop for a quick one in The Ship on Old Cross before lunch – without telling his wife. On that day she somehow discovered he was missing and came after him. He’d just got his pint on the counter when, with the bar full of Hugh’s big friends from McMullen’s opposite, the street door opened and one word penetrated the all-male filled room of banter: “HUGHIE!”. He dropped his pint and ran like a frightened rabbit. Next day he had to face his Macs draymen friends, who were not the types to be under a wife’s thumb!
Fred Hill
Fred Hill was apprenticed to his grandfather in Maldon, Essex and qualified as an horologist at North London Polytechnic. During the First World War he served in the 24th London Regiment (the Queen’s) and was awarded the Military Medal for his work in the Signal Section in France, guiding troops to the front-line trenches at night. He later came to Hertford and worked for Harry Harry, where his duties included winding and maintaining public and church clocks. He then set up on his own account at premises in St Andrew Street on the opposite side of the road from Hugh Mills, first at No. 24 and then, from about 1925, at No. 20.
Fred was a Baptist in religion and he helped form their Boys Brigade Company in Hertford in 1920. He served as an officer for the next 20 years, training boys in gymnastics and signals, and organising annual displays and camps. He was also a member of the Castle Garden Bowling Club for 40 years. In 1922 he married Eudora, daughter of Alderman Keeble, and they lived latterly at 2 Glebe Court, Bengeo.
Robert Horton, dealer in antique clocks and now the only tradesman in hertford who provides a clock and watch repair service, seen here in his shop at 13 Castle Street.
Other Clockmakers
There were two other clockmakers who operated in Hertford during the 20th century, but very little information is available about them from either the local press or personal memories. One was Ernest Brown who had premises at 19 Old Cross. He was in business there by 1918. He was succeeded by Alfred Creasey, who seems to have carried on the business there until at least the 1940s.
Hertford’s Public Clocks
Until the 19th century most people were unable to afford a clock or watch of their own, and thus the clock installed upon the church tower or the Town Hall performed an essential public service. This need gradually declined as the ownership of clocks and watches spread down the social scale. By the late 20th century such ownership had become almost universal, and there was little practical need for public clocks. As a consequence, many long established public clocks disappeared. In other cases, although the clock remained in place, it was no longer maintained but served simply as an historic relict. The fate of Hertford’s more notable public clocks is set out below.
Shire Hall
The Shire Hall Clock cost £220 to manufacture and install. It bears the following inscription:
This public clock was erected Anno domini 1824 during the Mayoralty of Thomas Colbeck Esq. and was paid for by a voluntary subscription to which members of the Corporation collectively and individually with many of the noblemen and gentlemen of the county and town liberally contributed. John Briant fecit.
For many years James Skerman and his son William were paid a pittance to keep it in good order. The clock was originally suspended from a bracket, but in 1866 a slated turret was added. In 1871 it was decided to replace the original copper dial with an opaque dial which could be illuminated at night, though whether by gas or oil is not specified. Charles Drummond was responsible for this initiative, and he also obtained the £80 required for the work by organising a public subscription. The new dial was fixed by Mr Bland of Messrs Gillet & Bland, Croydon.2
The clock’s maintenance entailed a good deal of clambering about on ladders, and on one such occasion in 1866 a fatal accident occurred. Alterations to Shire Hall were interfering with the running of the clock and so it was decided to be take it down until the work was finished. The clock was to be hoisted to a flat portion of the roof where it would be taken to pieces by Samuel Harry. During this operation, however, the rope holding the dial suddenly snapped and the dial fell to the street below, carrying one of the workmen with it. The man’s name was Joseph Sharpe; he lived at St. Albans and worked for Mr Miskin, the contractor. The inquest recorded a verdict of accidental death due to the breaking of a rope.
During the first half of the 20th century the Shire Hall clock seems to have needed little attention, apart from routine servicing and winding. Peter Ruffles remembers one occasion when he was about six years old, being taken by his father on a clock-winding visit with Sidney Ilott.
The great thrill was – when up at the right level – going right into the clock itself in the translucent light between the two clock faces. Closer in – back near the building – there was the huge privilege of a bird’s eye view through a peep hole up Fore Street towards the Corn Exchange.
In 1950 a short item appeared in the Mercury entitled “Clock Watcher”. The Shire Hall clock had recently been inspected by an expert horologist, who had noticed that “the striking hammers of the Shire Hall clock appeared to be resting on the bells, by no means improving the already poor tone of the bells themselves. He pointed out that the hammers should normally be held clear of the bells after striking.” This gentleman was employed by the firm which had manufactured the clock at St. Paul’s Cathedral, and he now offered the firm’s services in regard to the clock at Shire Hall. The Borough Council do not appear to have taken up this offer, but the following year they did set aside £20 to have the fault rectified.
At the same time steps were taken to ensure the clock’s accuracy. Comments were made at the Council meeting that the clock was often “a few minutes out and several bus passengers had missed their connections.” This was disputed by Harry Harry who said that the clock was checked daily and there had been very little error, though he did admit that “there has always been a slight variation 10 minutes before and after the half hour, caused through the wear of a nest of hands in the dials.” However, Councillor Macfarlane, who lived near Shire Hall, said that the clock was never right according to the pips on the wireless and so, on that basis, the repair work was agreed.
In 1959 the Shire Hall clock was once again the subject of controversy. Complaints had been made by guests staying across the road at the Salisbury Arms, that their nights were greatly disturbed by the chiming of the clock. The Council sought expert advice, but were informed that, to stop the clock chiming during the night, the hammers would have to be lifted off the clock, by hand, in the late evening and then replaced in the morning. This could be done by the caretaker, but it was clearly a most inconvenient arrangement and investigations were made into the possibility of installing a remote control system. However, in February 1959 the Council’s General Committee voted by 14 votes to three, that no further action be taken in the matter. The observations made during the meeting included the following gems:
In a hotel you have no opportunity of getting used to any noise. I can quite imagine it could be a real nuisance to hotel people… In almost every hotel room there was noise. Traffic noise could not be stopped… It is also possible that residents used to the clock striking will be kept awake by the failure of the clock to strike… After council meetings I sometimes find it difficult to get to sleep. I hear the Bengeo clock and it lulls me to sleep… The old town clock is very dear to me. It is something we should be proud of…
The issue did not end there, however, for shortly afterwards the town was honoured with a visit from the BBC. Mr John Hesman, manager of the Salisbury Arms, told the BBC reporter that he had regularly received complaints. “I cannot say we don’t let our rooms because of the noise,” he said, “but we get complaints in the morning.” The Shire Hall caretaker, Mr Lawlor, said that, although he slept in a room almost underneath the clock, it did not wake him. He complained more of the noise of motorbikes. The controversy was aired in the regional news programme on the BBC Home Service on 24th March at 6.38pm. Mr Charles Baston subsequently wrote to the Mercury:
I heard that someone wants to stop it striking during the night hours. For many years I had the pleasure of living almost within its shadow and I never remember it keeping me awake!
In 1963 the Mercury celebrated the work of Sidney Ilott, who by then was living at 151 Bengeo Street. The paper stated that for 55 years Sidney had been winding the Shire Hall Clock, sometimes with help from Hugh Mills. Now aged 71, Sidney commented: “It is no light work winding up the clock, as the weights reach from the top to the bottom of the Shire Hall, but a series of pulleys ensure that they go down the side of the building and not immediately under the clock.” Sidney added that the clock kept very good time, but it could be affected by the weather; a very high wind could retard it and sometimes snow could cause trouble. “At one time,” he said, “I used to go outside along a narrow cat-walk and knock the snow off the hands with a long pole, but it is too dangerous for me now.”
The clock continued to chime through the night until 1983. Then, at a cost of about £400, McMullen & Co. Ltd, owners of the Salisbury Arms, paid for the mechanism to be altered, so that it wouldn’t chime between certain hours. A major restoration of Shire Hall was undertaken in the late 1980s and during this time the clock was stopped. The building, now restored to its former 18th century glory, was reopened in June 1990 and the clock was once again set in motion. A further important milestone in its life occurred in 2008, when the clock was converted to digital working and a link was established to the atomic clock at Rugby.
All Saints’ Church
The Turret Clock at All Saints’ Church
The clock on the tower of All Saints’ Church at Hertford has a very complicated history. It was made in about 1809-10 by the Hertford clockmaker, John Briant, and was originally installed in the church of St Mary, Ware. There is no information about the clock in the vestry minutes until 1814 when a complaint is recorded that the bell ringers are “doing mischief unnecessarily to the Chime Hammers”, and the vestry decide that only one person should have access “to the place where the Bells and clock and chimes are fixed.” The minutes further record that repairs were undertaken to the clock in 1815 and 1828; in the latter year they were carried out by a Mr Jeffries, who was paid £2.
In 1885 the vestry of St Mary’s offered the Briant clock to the Board of Guardians of the Hertford Poor Law Union, so that it could be installed on the Union Workhouse in the Ware Road. This provoked a flurry of correspondence in the Mercury. At that time people writing to the paper tended to use rather arch pen-names. One such correspondent was “Y”, who asked “why”, if the Briant clock was in such excellent order – as it was purported to be – the churchwardens at St Mary’s were discarding it in favour of a new clock. “Y” had been assured by a “competent authority” that the new clock was “in every way inferior to the old one.” This claim does not seem to have been accurate, for the old clock was apparently in need of new dials, a bell and weights. Nonetheless, the Guardians decided to accept it and engaged Samuel Harry to install it on the Workhouse at a cost of £81.10s.0d. This decision provoked a letter from “Town Clock” who complained about the expense, but a riposte soon followed from “Clock at the Workhouse” who accused “Town Clock” of minor jealousy and urged him to show a sense of brotherly feeling.
In the face of such good humour, the controversy blew over and the people living at the far end of Ware Road became very attached to the Workhouse clock. In 1919 the building was acquired by the County Council who converted it into a residential school for the “mentally handicapped”. Known as Kingsmead, the school continued in use until 1968 and during that time the clock remained in place on the building, where it served as a timely reminder to local children to return home from play.
Following the closure of the school, the County Council offered the clock to All Saints’ Church. This move was welcomed by the parishioners, including Miss Baker of Queen’s Road, who said in a piece penned for the parish magazine:
I hope the Briant clock will remain in Hertford, I should so like to hear it strike again. Years ago, when we used to have warm summer evenings and there was no radio or television to lure us indoors, we used to sit in the garden until quite late and the only sound overhead was the squeaking of bats instead of a Boeing 707 going to Heathrow. I remember hearing clocks striking all around the neighbourhood. As a rule the Briant clock was the first, from what was then the workhouse, followed by the stable clocks of Balls Park (Sir George Faudel-Phillips), Brickendonbury (Sir Edward Pearson), and Bayfordbury (Admiral Clinton Baker). Unfortunately these estates no longer exist, but with the noise of the present day one would not hear clocks anyway.
The installation costs were estimated to be £1500, but fortunately this sum was defrayed by an anonymous donor, and the clock was thus installed on the Victoria Tower at All Saints towards the end of 1969. It was an historic day for the church and town, and also for the clock’s creator, John Briant, whose remains lie in the churchyard below.
Other Town Clocks
Two notable public clocks appeared in Hertford during the 19th century. 
The first was at Christ’s Hospital. A drawing of about 1780 shows a clock on the façade of the “Old Writing School”. This clock was replaced in 1824 by a new one, made by the firm of Thwaites & Reed of Clerkenwell. The firm was established in 1817 and both partners came from clock-making families of long standing. The clock was recently restored by Smith of Derby Ltd on the initiative of the Chauncy Court Residents’ Association, who raised the cost of restoration (about £6000) by means of grants and donations. The restoration was completed in March 2010.
The clock installed at McMullen’s Hertford Brewery in 1891 and recently restored.
The second public clock was installed by McMullen & Co. in 1891 at their new brewery premises in Hartham Lane. At the time of its installation the clock was already 60 years old, having been made in 1829 by Moores of Clerkenwell, formerly Moore and Handley. It took the form of a three-face striking clock and was installed within a turret that rose from the centre of a loading-out shed. In its report on the opening of the new brewery, the Mercury commented that the clock would prove “a decided boon to the general public.” It has now been restored as part of the development of the former brewery premises to a Sainsbury superstore.
During the 19th century clocks were often provided for the benefit of visitors and users within public buildings. One such clock was installed in the Hertford Public Library and School of Art at Old Cross. The Mercury of 31 August 1889, in reporting on the official opening of the library, commented that: “In the Reading Room is a capital clock presented by Alderman Marks JP as the inscription to it states but the inscription is barely visible and it is impossible to read it except by standing on a ladder.” In 2012, following the closure of the library at Old Cross, the clock was acquired by Hertford Museum and is now displayed to good effect in the Hertfordshire Gallery. Furthermore, the inscription to Alderman Marks is now perfectly visible.
Notes:
1 The other articles which have been published in the H&WLHS Journal Are: Humphrey Clarke – Clockmaker of “Hartford”? (2009); Hertford’s 18th Century Clockmakers (2010); Hertford’s 19th Century Clockmakers (December 2011).
2 This company also installed the new clock at St. Mary’s Church, Ware in 1877.
Sources of Reference
Printed:
Britten, F.J. & others 1982 Britten’s Old Clocks and Watches and Their Makers London
Kelly’s Trade Directories
Newspapers:
Hertfordshire Mercury
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