There are lots that match your search criteria. Subscribe now to get instant access to the full price guide service. A very rare and historically interesting late 19th century two-day marine chronometer movement that took part in Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod expedition from July to September Now mounted in a mahogany mantel case.
Gardner,20 Lloyd Square, London W. Stamped with the Admiralty arrow and'I ', No. Gardner 20 Lloyd Square London. The spotted full plate movement with four ringed pillars and maintaining power to the chain fusee, free sprung palladium helical balance spring top pivot broken with diamond endstone and Earnshaw type escapement detent lacking , cut and compensated bimetallic balance with circular timing weights, sitting in a weighted, gimballed bowl punch numbered 5 and with sprung rear cover to allow winding access.
Now set into a 20th century mahogany mantel piece case. He was apprenticed to a clockmaker in Glasgow, and later, in , to a London watchmaker, Troy Thomas. In , his father died, and the business passed to Robert and his brother John. Robert returned from London to run the family business with John. Their partnership was short lived, however, and by Robert had established his own watchmaker's shop in Glasgow.
Apparently, he was travelling extensively at this time, to both the Continent and the United States, all in the pursuit of discovering improved horological techniques. In , some ship owner friends in Glasgow commissioned him to go to London and buy them some chronometers for their ships.
After his return, it seems he became fixated with chronometers and by , he was again living in London; he was married that same year, to A--, who was 11 years his junior. In he had established his workshop in his home at 20 Lloyd Square, Clerkenwell Road; he gradually moved into marine chronometers, originally purchasing finished Kullberg chronometers, and then using the bought stock from James Nelson, who had since retired and moved to New Zealand. His son, Malcolm, had been born the year before, in Once he began making his own chronometers, he became increasingly engrossed in making the best chronometer balance with the optimum spring combination to ensure isochronism.
