c.1840 Helical Geared Month-Going Skeleton Clock, C. McDowall, Wakefield, No.169 For Sale

c.1840 Helical Geared Month-Going Skeleton Clock, C. McDowall, Wakefield, No.169

Inv. #: E108

Maker: Charles McDowall, St. John’s, Wakefield.

Circa: 1840

A very rare mid-19th century English skeleton clock with helical gearing by Charles MacDowall, Wakefield. The high-quality month running movement has shaped plates, four large posts screwed with collets front and rear, a silvered dial, helical gearing, a dead-beat escapement and a triangular shaped brass pendulum.DialThe engraved silvered dial has Roman numerals for the hours, two nicely cut steel hands and is elaborately engraved in the center.MovementThe four wheel helical geared time-only train has heavy brass wheels with rounded collets, an unusually elongated fusee, steel screwed end stops on the backplate and a caliper style steel dead-beat anchor that encompasses 6 teeth of an 18-tooth escape wheel. The crutch is fastened by a screwed collet to the anchor arbor and, unlike most clocks, comes down inside the backplate, encircles the next arbor and engages with the pendulum by a steel pin through a cut-out slot in the back plate. The shaped pendulum is suspended from a screwed beat adjustment by a steel suspension spring, is triangular shaped and has a rounded brass bound bob with the rating nut located above.
Ref:For additional information on MacDowall see:

Royer-Collard, pgs. 61-63 and for a similar clock see Fig. 3-50.
Derek Roberts, 'British Skeleton Clocks', and pgs. 171-174.