Shropshire
Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...
in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. The company claim to be the oldest clock manufacturer in the world, originally established in 1690, and have been part of the
Smith of Derby Group
Founded in 1856, the Smith of Derby Group are clockmakers based in Derby, England. Smith of Derby has been in operation continuously under five generations of the Smith family.
History
John Smith (21 December 1813 - 1886)clockmaker
A clockmaker is an artisan who makes and/or repairs clocks. Since almost all clocks are now factory-made, most modern clockmakers only repair clocks. Modern clockmakers may be employed by jewellers, antique shops, and places devoted strictly t ...
s,
Thwaites & Reed
Thwaites & Reed has been in continuous manufacture since its foundation and claims to be the oldest clock manufacturing company in the world. Geoffrey Buggins MBE, the last of the original family clockmakers, saw drawings of Thwaites clocks datin ...
, who claim to have been in continuous manufacture since before 1740, with antecedents to 1610.
History
William Joyce began in the
North Shropshire
North Shropshire was a local government district in Shropshire, England from 1974 to 2009. The district council was based at Edinburgh House in Wem. Other settlements included the towns of Ellesmere, Market Drayton, Wem and Whitchurch, as w ...
village of Cockshutt making longcase clocks. The family business was handed down from father to son and in 1790 moved to High Street,
Whitchurch, Shropshire
Whitchurch is a market town in the north of Shropshire, England. It lies east of the Welsh border, 2 miles south of the Cheshire border, north of the county town of Shrewsbury, south of Chester, and east of Wrexham. At the 2011 Census, the ...
. In 1904 J. B. Joyce moved to Station Road, Whitchurch. In 1834 Thomas Joyce made large clocks for local churches and public buildings. In 1849 the company copied the Big Ben escapement designed by Lord Grimthorpe. J. B. Joyce also installed synchronous electric clocks in a number of railway stations, including Liverpool’s
Lime Street Station
Liverpool Lime Street is a terminus railway station and the main station serving the city centre of Liverpool. Opened in August 1836, it is the oldest still-operating grand terminus mainline station in the world. A branch of the West Coast ...
,
Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth () is a university and seaside town as well as a community in Ceredigion, Wales. Located in the historic county of Cardiganshire, means "the mouth of the Ystwyth". Aberystwyth University has been a major educational location in ...
in Wales, and
Carnforth
Carnforth is a market town and civil parish in the City of Lancaster in Lancashire, England, situated at the north-east end of Morecambe Bay. The parish of Carnforth had a population of 5,560 in the 2011 census, an increase from the 5,350 reco ...
in Lancashire. John Edgar Howard Smith (19071983), a former managing director of Smith of Derby Group, designed the first and subsequent synchronous electric movements for J. B. Joyce, and their associated electromechanical bell striking units.
In 1964, Norman Joyce, the last member of the Joyce family, retired and sold the company to Smith of Derby. During the 1970s, many of the mechanical clocks were changed to use the electric motors made by the Smith parent company. However, J. B. Joyce continued to operate as a separate company, with mainly heritage work being carried out in the factory up to 2012, when a timedbid auction was held to sell off surplus equipment, tools, and clock parts, at the Station Road premises. Interior designers, collectors of historic items, and aficionados of J. B. Joyce, joined to bid for a "piece of horological history".
Eastgate Eastgate may refer to:
Places Canada
* Eastgate, Alberta, Canada
* Eastgate, British Columbia, Canada
United Kingdom
* Eastgate, County Durham, England
* Eastgate, Norfolk, England
* Eastgate, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England
* Eastgate, C ...
, Chester
2014.11.15.190948 Customs House Bund night Shanghai.jpg,
Custom House
A custom house or customs house was traditionally a building housing the offices for a jurisdictional government whose officials oversaw the functions associated with importing and exporting goods into and out of a country, such as collecting c ...
, Shanghai
Ayuntamiento, Ciudad del Cabo, Sudáfrica, 2018-07-19, DD 08.jpg ,
Cape Town City Hall
Cape Town City Hall is a large Edwardian building in Cape Town city centre which was built in 1905. It is located on the Grand Parade to the west of the Castle and is built from honey-coloured oolitic limestone imported from Bath in England. ...
, Cape Town
Martin Place - panoramio - Maksym Kozlenko.jpg,
General Post Office
The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. ...
, Sydney
See also
*
List of oldest companies
This list of the oldest companies in the world includes brands and companies, excluding associations and educational, government, or religious organizations. To be listed, a brand or company name must remain operating, either in whole or in part, ...
*
Clock tower
Clock towers are a specific type of structure which house a turret clock and have one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another buildi ...
*
List of clocks
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby unio ...