Height, 1 ft. 8 in. Width, 10 in. Depth, 5-1/2 in. No name of maker. Date, 1810-15. Height, 1 ft. 7-3/4 in. Width, 1 ft. Depth, 5-1/2 in.] [Illustration: EBONY TABLE CLOCK. Inlaid with medallions of blue and white Wedgwood jasper ware. Enriched with mounted ornament of cut steel. (_By courtesy of City of Nottingham Museum and Art Gallery._)] CHAPTER VIII PROVINCIAL CLOCKS Their character--Names of clockmakers found on clocks in the provinces--The North of England: Newcastle-upon- Tyne--Yorkshire clockmakers: Halifax and the district--Liverpool and the district--The Midlands--The Home Counties--The West Country--Miscellaneous makers. A great deal of attention has been paid by collectors to clocks by well-known London makers and too little examination has been given to fine examples by those of the provinces. In the present chapter an attempt is made to fill a hiatus in this respect, and by the kindness of those interested in the various localities certain data are presented which may stimulate the student to continue his researches on the lines here indicated. The metropolis attracted noteworthy makers, but they had their origin and often their early training in the provinces. The following are among the great London clockmakers, but they were not Londoners. They come from all parts of the country. Joseph Knibb (about 1670) was an Oxfordshire man. The famous Thomas Tompion, born in 1638, came from Bedfordshire. George Graham (1673-1751) tramped to London from Cumberland. Thomas Earnshaw, who perfected the marine chronometer, his additions being still in use, was born at Ashton-under-Lyne in 1750 and served his apprenticeship there. Henry Jones, who was the pupil of Edward East, was the son of a vicar at Southampton. Charles II had a clock made by him. Thomas Mudge was the son of a schoolmaster and was born at Exeter in 1715. Another Exeter man was Jacob Lovelace, who took over thirty years to construct a remarkable clock. The celebrated John Harrison was the son of a carpenter on an estate at Pontefract. It was he who competed for the Government gratuity offered for a nautical timekeeper, for which he finally received £10,000, after repeated tests in voyages to the West Indies by himself and his son. We think of his early struggles, when he travelled up to London after he was forty, only to find that he had to return to the provinces and continue his vocation as clock-mender in ordinary and inventor extraordinary. There is a long-case clock with wooden wheels and pinions by him in the Guildhall Museum, London.