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Grandfather Clock
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here to see our selection of Grandfather Clock.
 Grandfather
clocks are also known as floor clocks or longcase clocks. In fact,
although the first grandfather clocks were made around the mid 1600s,
they were not commonly called “grandfather clocks” until
after 1875. What is the history of the grandfather clock?
The true history of grandfather clocks begins back in 1582 when
Galileo Galilei first discovered that you could use a pendulum to
keep time. It was Galileo, in fact, who drew the first designs for
a grandfather clock. A man named Christiaan Huygens built the first
working grandfather clock by using what Galileo discovered. Of ocurse,
it is William Clement who usually gets accredited with the first
true grandfather clock.
You might say that William Clement is the “father of grandfather
clocks.” The very first did not actually keep time all that
well. William Clement helped fix this problem by making the pendulum
longer. With a longer pendulum, a grandfather clock could keep better
time. Of course, longer pendulums required longer cases, and this
is where the term long case clock came from. Where did the name
grandfather clock come from?
The story of the grandfather clock generally goes like this: Once
upon a time, in Piercebridge, North Yorkshire, England, there was
a lovely lodge known as the George Hotel. Two handsome and loyal
bachelor brothers named Jenkins managed the George hotel. The Jenkins
brother had a beautiful floor clock that stood in the hotel lobby.
This particular floor clock kept very good time (which was not terribly
usual since the mechanics of grandfather clocks were still being
fixed and improved at the time).
One day, one of the Jenkins brothers suddenly died quite suddenly
and the old clock started to lose times. Eventually the old floor
clock began to lose an hour a day. When the second brother died,
the floor clock stopped working completely. The floor clock was
never repaired, and instead it just sat motionless in the hotel
lobby.
Around 1875, Henry Work, an American songwriter stayed at the George
Hotel while traveling through England. When he asked about the motionless
clock, he received the story of the Jenkins brothers. Henry Work
decided to write a song about the long case clock. The song lyrics
start out, “Oh my grandfather’s clock…”
Nowadays, because of the Jenkins brothers and Henry Work, we refer
to long case clocks as grandfather clocks. Grandfather clocks are
still very popular in both the United States and England, as well
as other countries. Grandfather clocks are often cherished heirlooms.
After all, why wouldn’t you want to pass on a clock through
your family that has such a “family” name like grandfather
clock and such a “family” story associated with it about
the Jenkins brothers? Who does not love their family’s grandfather
clock?
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