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Long-Case Clock by Joseph Cross

Made in Bradford on Avon

Bradford on Avon Museum, Wiltshire

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A second long-case clock was acquired by Bradford on Avon Museum in 2019 and returned to its home town. It was made by Joseph Cross in Whitehill, Bradford on Avon in about 1840 and stands over seven feet high. It has an eight-day mechanism which provides hours, minutes and seconds as well as the day of the month and phase of the moon.

At that time an engraved brass face, like the Joshua Rudd clock of c1760, would have been very old-fashioned; this clock has a white painted face with Arabic numerals instead of Roman. The moon-phase -29½ days lunar month- is shown in a semi-circle at the top. In the corners are painted female figures that probably represent the four seasons.

The case is veneered in Cuban flame-mahogany and further decorated with inlaid stringing of contrasting pale box wood. The hood rises above the moon-phase and is topped by three brass finials that may have been replacements.

The clockmaker may have made just the mechanism, getting the case made by a specialist cabinet maker -there were several in Bradford- and perhaps the figures on the dial were painted by another person too.

Joseph Cross (1799-1884) was a son of William (c1770-1827), a clockmaker in Trowbridge and his wife Mary. His older brother, John (1798-1828), was also making clocks in Trowbridge, so he perhaps needed to move to Bradford to strike out on his own. He was first recorded in 1822 in the hamlet of Woolley, but from 1830 he was in Whitehill in the town and he and his wife Elizabeth had a son, George, in the following year. He was still in Bradford in 1841, but the 1851 Census finds them living in Westbury. His wife had died before the 1861 Census when he was “watchmaker and grocer” in Bratton, living with George’s family. He died in Westbury in 1885.

The clock was purchased from a dealer in Tetbury, Gloucestershire in 1995 and had been in a house in Keynsham, Somerset since then. Its earlier history is unknown, perhaps made for a middle-class home in Bradford with high ceilings.

The Museum is very grateful to the Bradford on Avon Preservation Trust for help in acquiring the clock.