"He was a member and at one time president of the Smeatonian Society, the precursor of the Institution of Civil Engineers. In 1762 he devised a self-acting pneumatic brake for preventing accidents to the men employed in working wheel-cranes. In _The Gentlemen's Magazine_ for June, 1765, page 296, it is recorded that Messrs. Pinchbeck and Norton had made a complicated astronomical clock for the Queen's house, some of the calculations of the wheel having been made by James Ferguson, the astronomer. There is no proof that Pinchbeck and Norton were ever in partnership, and there are now two clocks answering to the description at Buckingham Palace, one by Pinchbeck, with four dials and of a very complicated construction, and another by Norton. [Illustration: A clipping from the _Daily Post_, London showing that Fawkes combined forces with Powel, the famous Bartholomew Fair puppet man. From the Harry Houdini Collection.] "Pinchbeck took out three patents: the first (No. 892), granted 1768, was for an improved candlestick with a spring socket for holding the candle firmly, and an arrangement whereby the candle always occupied an upright position, however the candlestick might be held. In 1768 (patent No. 899) he patented his nocturnal remembrancer, a series of tablets with notches, to serve as guides for writing in the dark. His snuffers (No. 1119) patented 1776, continued to be made in Birmingham until the last forty years or so, when snuffers began to go out of use. In 1774 he presented to the Society of Arts a model of a plough for mending roads. Pinchbeck's name first appears in the London directory in 1778, when it replaced that of Richard Pinchbeck, toyman, of whom nothing is recorded. "Christopher Pinchbeck, Jr., was held in considerable esteem by George III., and he figures in Wilkes' London Museum (ii-33) in 1770 in the list of the party who called themselves the King's friends. He died March 17th, 1783, aged 73, and was buried in St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. His will, which was very curious, is printed in full in _The Horological Journal_ of November, 1895. One of his daughters married William Hebb, who was described as 'son-in-law and successor of the late Mr. Pinchbeck at his shop in Cockspur Street' (imprinted on Pinchbeck's portrait), whose son Christopher Henry Hebb (1772-1861) practised as a surgeon in Worcester. There is in existence a portrait of Christopher Pinchbeck the younger, by Cunningham, engraved by W. Humphrey."