The Huntington Library and Art Gallery

The Henry E. Huntington Collection is at the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery in San Marino, California.⁶ Huntington (1850-1927) was a railroad tycoon who collected from 1908 to 1927. Like the Proctors, he sought out works of art, furniture and other objects, as well as a number of clocks and sundials. He housed his collections in his own residence but after his death a new gallery was added to the house in 1934; it displayed his famous paintings and decorative arts, but no special emphasis was placed on horology. In fact, a shameful note is that a hall clock by Wyke of Liverpool from around 1800 has had its movement replaced by an electric one with added chimes.

Old Sturbridge Village

Somewhat later than these contemporaries of the Proctors, J. Cheney Wells (1894-1960) opened the “Living Museum” with his brothers in 1946 at Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts. He collected clocks in the 1920s and his clocks are still maintained and displayed at Old Sturbridge Village.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Among museums that have received horological collections, the first to come to mind is the large Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It has clocks and watches displayed in many places in its galleries. The J. Pierpont Morgan, Sr. Collection is dispersed throughout the museum and includes not only watches and clocks but also exhibits on the development of watchmaking, as well as all other aspects of decorative arts. The Decorative Arts Department at the Museum notes that it would be impossible to keep the Morgan Collections together; there are exhibits on almost every floor in at least five separate decorative arts galleries. N. Hudson Moore,⁷ writing in 1911, spoke of the collection of timekeepers presented to the Metropolitan Museum by the late Dr. Thomas Egleston. It was composed of twelve watches that are no longer on view, all being in storage. Laura Frances Hearn (Mrs. George A. Hearn) lent a fabulous collection of watches to the Metropolitan Museum in 1907,⁸ consisting of Breguets, Berthouds, Lepines, repeaters, mandolin watches and many others. Moore spoke of this collection as still belonging to Mrs. Hearn in 1911. It was then donated to the Museum in 1917. The Horological Institute of America Journal for November 1948 had a two-and-a-half page article, “Introduction to the Hearn Collection of Watches at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City,” by W. S. Howard. However, of the 55 Hearn watches, only three are now on view at the Metropolitan and they are not displayed together. There is no label identifying the donors of the Morgan, Hearn, or other watches, such as the watches given to the Metropolitan by Lucy W. Drexel in 1889, by Frederick Danne in 1907, by Lady May Fletcher-Moulton in 1926, and by Mrs. Simon Guggenheim in 1929.

The Carnegie Institute

The Natural History Museum of the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh owns the H. J. Heinz Collection. The Heinz Collection was catalogued by the Carnegie Museum of the Carnegie Institute in 1917,⁹ when it was apparently in the main museum. In its present location, it is still on display, or a portion of it is; like the Proctor Collection, it is large and can only be partially shown at any one time. In fact, Mr. Heinz specified that of his extensive collection, “only the best specimens shall be exhibited.” The Carnegie Museum catalog called it one of the most important collections in the United States. It includes sundials, important seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century European watches, and European clocks. Interestingly enough, some of Mr. Heinz’ collection came from a sale of a portion of the F. T. Proctor Collection in 1910.

The National Watch and Clock Museum®

Items from the James Arthur Collection at the NAWCC Museum include: (top) Amsterdam, Netherlands, pocket watch, late eighteenth century. (bottom) Pocket watch with fusee movement, London, England, c. 1710.

The NAWCC Museum is home to several collections. The James Arthur Collection ended up here in 1983. James Arthur (1842-1930)¹⁰ was born in Ireland and began work with a locomotive firm in Glasgow. He emigrated to the United States in 1871 and joined a steam pump and valve company. In 1885 he opened his own firm. By 1906 he was collecting and making timepieces. When he retired in 1912 he devoted all his time to his favorite hobby, clocks. He eventually owned 1800 pieces, some of his own making, some extraordinarily unusual. In 1925 Arthur presented his collection to New York University. Many years later New York University tried to divest itself of the Arthur Collection. They had lent a number of pieces to the Smithsonian Institution and proposed giving the Smithsonian the whole collection. This would have been contrary to Mr. Arthur’s will, and through a series of legal intricacies, the courts found that the best resting place would be the NAWCC. A portion of the collection is research material and is kept in NAWCC’s museum vaults, but another portion is on view in the museum, not together, but identified as coming from the Arthur Collection. In 1985 NAWCC put 100 items from the Arthur Collection on view. A few pieces remain at the Smithsonian, including a famous cosmochronotrope.¹¹

Also at the NAWCC Museum, on a loan basis, is the Stephens Collection. Dr. William Barclay Stephens (1869-1962)¹² was a San Francisco doctor from the same era as the Proctors. He did not have quite their family wealth but he pursued his many interests diligently and lived to a very old age. From 1917 on he attempted to collect all models of American horology. After retiring from his career as an ophthalmologist, he devoted himself to his hobbies. He was a founder of NAWCC and one of its directors from 1946 to 1951. He was particularly devoted to the California Academy of Sciences. In the 1950s he placed his extensive watch and clock collection with the Academy, personally overseeing its display and supervision. The collection was open to the public and viewed without charge. After years of neglect, the collection has been lent to NAWCC; some of the pieces were in the exhibition at the NAWCC 2000 National Convention in Philadelphia. (The Bishop Museum in Honolulu also was given a collection of watches and clocks by Dr. Stephens.)

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