From the Steyning Museum archives: Clockmakers of Steyning.

From the Steyning Museum archives: Clockmakers of Steyning.

It was in 1723 that Thomas Finch of Steyning, at the age of 14, became an apprentice to Benjamin Packham.  He agreed to serve his master and learn the trade of a clockmaker for a period of seven years.

He was a part of the tradition of clock and watch making in Steyning stretching back for well over 300 years.   Although these men described themselves as the makers of clocks their principal skills lay in their assembly and repair.  Most of the original mechanisms would have been bought from specialist makers in Clerkenwell.  The local clockmakers then added the twirly bits at the corners of the clock face (probably selected from illustrations in a pattern book), signed their names on the front and set the works in a locally made case.

The fact that Thomas Finch was apprenticed to Benjamin Packham does, however, demonstrate that it was a skilled profession.  Any broken bits would have had to be repaired or substitutes made.  Benjamin Packham’s father was a blacksmith so he had grown up in a metal working environment.  But the long case clock (often called a grandfather clock) in the Museum collection which has his name engraved on the front – “Ben Packham . . Stening” is extraordinarily sophisticated for a 300 year old time piece.

A country maker at that time would not necessarily have provided a minute hand as well as an hour hand but Benjamin’s clock in our possession had both and, for good measure, he added a second hand together with a date dial.

His apprentice, Thomas Finch, actually had less than his allotted 7 year apprenticeship because Benjamin died in 1727, but throughout his life Thomas described himself as either a clockmaker or clocksmith.  Strangely the clock in our collection made by Thomas Finch has none of the sophistication of his mentor’s timepiece:  it has no minute hand, only an hour hand.  Whoever bought it from him presumably felt no need to know the time to the nearest minute.

We know less about the clock making skills of one of Thomas Finch’s successors, James Irish, who was working here in the late 18th century but our archives do reveal other things.  He played in a cricket match in 1772 when Henfield scraped home against ‘Darking’.  An account of the match says “there were 34 notches to fetch when the last two were in.  Mr. Irish of Steyning was one of these and, while he was in, got upwards of 70 from his own bat.”  [‘Notches’ were cut in a tally stick to record the number of runs.]  We also know that when he voted in the disputed election of 1791 he showed himself to be a bit of a rebel by “refusing the oath of succession” – a brave thing to do so soon after the French Revolution.
There is a further tantalising link between Steyning clocks and the makers in Clerkenwell.

The control dial of Steyning’s Town Clock is inscribed with the name of “Aynsworth Thwaites” – a Clerkenwell clockmaker who died in 1780.  Though there is still a debate as to whether Steyning’s clock was a gift from the Duke of Norfolk – now deemed to be a little unlikely for various reasons – whether it was made specially for the town after the construction of the market house in the 1770’s or whether it was moved from the old market house (which was in the middle of the street outside the post office) we do know that the one we see now is very different.
 
The clock tower was completely rebuilt and clock itself converted from two faces, which it used to have, to three in 1848.  Interestingly this work was overseen, on the town’s behalf, not by a clockmaker but by a Steyning plumber.  It illustrates once again the fine line between those Steyning men who had skills in working with metals and the more precise skills of clockmaking which Thomas Finch had signed up to learn in 1723.