GEORGE LITTLEWORT, LONDON. AN EXCEPTIONALLY RARE EARLY 19TH CENTURY GENERAL POST OFFICE MAIL GUARD'S TRAVELLING CLOCK

GEORGE LITTLEWORT, LONDON. AN EXCEPTIONALLY RARE EARLY 19TH CENTURY GENERAL POST OFFICE MAIL GUARD'S TRAVELLING CLOCK in a rectangular case with brass front plate engraved GR and General Post Office and inscribed GPO No. 83, with a red painted sight ring enclosing a white enamel dial with Roman numerals, the lower plate engraved George Littlewort London, fronting a four-day chain-driven fusee movement.

Charles Allix and Peter Bonnert, in Carriage Clocks – Their History and Development, note that at designated stages of each journey, Mail Guards handed their locked clocks to the local Postmaster, who recorded the coach's arrival time on the official waybill before returning the clock. These timepieces were therefore official Government instruments, essential to the punctual operation of Britain's Royal Mail coach network.

George Littlewort became Free of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers in 1822, establishing the earliest possible date for independent production. His Mail Guard’s clocks are among the most historically significant portable clocks of the early nineteenth century, combining fine English clockmaking with direct association to the operation of Britain’s Royal Mail coach service.

With its exceptionally low serial number, original General Post Office engraving, surviving vermilion-red painted bezel, original ebonised travelling case, high-quality fusee and lever movement, and remarkable state of preservation, this example stands amongst the finest known survivors of its type. It possesses exceptional appeal not only to collectors of English clocks, but also to collectors of postal history, transport history, scientific instruments and the material culture of the British state.

Official General Post Office Mail Guards’ travelling clocks survive in remarkably small numbers and represent one of the rarest surviving categories of nineteenth-century British public service horology.

The Science Museum, London, preserves a closely related George Littlewort Mail Guard’s clock, No. 197, catalogued to circa 1825, within the nationally important Clockmakers’ Museum Collection. Like the present example, it is engraved General Post Office and fitted with a high-quality fusee and lever movement, demonstrating the standard of precision timekeepers supplied to Mail Guards during the coaching era.

11.5cm high