A
400-Year-Old
London Sundial, 1625
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Before clocks arrived in England, sundials were being used to tell the time. However, even after the arrival of early clocks, sundials were still very important during the 16th and 17th centuries because the earliest domestic clocks prior to the invention of the pendulum were not always accurate, and so domestic clocks had to be reset regularly using sundials as a reference. Lantern clock makers would often sell their clocks accompanied by a brass sundial that was made by the clockmaker himself, or alternatively, for more wealthier customers the dial could have been made by a mathematical instrument maker.
This extremely rare early London, James I and Charles I, period brass sundial, complete with its original, thin brass knife-edge fringed gnomon is signed E.C' and dated 1625. It is an exciting find and was made during what would turn out to be one of the most historically important years in the history of the English monarchy.
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Portrait of King James I. He died on March 27th, 1625 and was then succeeded to the throne by his second son, Charles I National museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The dial was made in the same year as when the King of England, Scotland and Ireland, James VI and I, died on the 27th of March 1625 and was then succeeded to the throne on the same day by his second son, Charles I, who also married Henrietta Maria, daughter of the King of France on the 1st of May 1625 by proxy at Notre Dame and in person at Canterbury the following month. This succession would eventually have devastating consequences throughout the entire land as an unpopular King Charles would go on to steer England into a brutal and bloody civil war which ultimately lead to his own death when he was executed outside the banqueting hall in Whitehall on the 30th January 1649.
The "Darnley Portrait" of Elizabeth I of England, c1575. Unidentified painter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
This fascinating early, small brass London sundial is an historically important survivor. Born in the 1570s under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (daughter of King Henry XIII), its maker is possibly the London Mathematical Instrume...