SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: The clock-making and bell foundry business established off Whitehorse Road in the mid-19th Century by William Gillett still chimes with the present day, as DAVID MORGAN explains
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Croydon industrialist: William Gillett left a lasting legacy
The Croydon Times on May 8, 1886, carried a short obituary about a man who had been one of Croydon’s leading manufacturers of the 19th Century, William Gillett.
His name was known worldwide. At Gillett’s funeral, 60 of his firm’s longest-serving workers, some of whom had completed 30 years’ service, walked in front of his hearse as it made its way to Croydon Cemetery, with the burial service conducted by “Mr Prince of Forest Hill”.
Gillett had been a member of the West Street Strict Baptist Church.
Still very much active in business in his 70th year, the week before his death he had travelled to Bradford, Liverpool and other northern towns with his son. He was quite well when he returned home but, according to the local report, “succumbed to a fresh attack of an old enemy soon after”. The report fails to explain what “the old enemy” might have been, but this was a time when death from the flu was not uncommon.
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Death notices: William Gillet’s obituary in the Croydon Times in 1886
The obituary pointed out that although Gillett would be sorely missed on a personal level, the business of making clocks would continue with his son and Mr A Johnstone taking charge.
Gillett had begun his working life as a clock and watchmaker in Hadlow, Kent. He was listed in the 1841 census as living in the village with his wife Bridget and sons Robert and William.
Ten years later, he was living in Finsbury. Only one son, Robert, was recorded at the same address in 1851.
There were four young men, lodgers in their house. Two were apprentice clockmakers. One was a carpenter, the fourth was a clockmaker.
The 1861 census showed that the Gillett family were living in Croydon in Whitehorse Road. A history of the firm dates their arrival in Croydon back to 1844.
In the years following their arrival in Thornton Heath, Gillett steadily built the business. Charles Bland became a partner around 1854, bringing a new and successful approach to sales. The company was rebranded as “Gillett and Brand”. Brand was credited with introducing turret and public clock manufacture to the business.
They were one of the first steam-powered clock factories in the world, and in 1868 the landmark clock tower at the factory was built as a working advertisement to show how bells could be hung and rung. Each of the four clockfaces was different and unique.
An additional note on the 1861 census return reads that William Gillett, by now in his 40s, was a clock manufacturer employing 22 people, including clock case makers, clock movement makers, turret makers, an engineer, a smith and some labourers.
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Document of record: the 1841 census. Gillett and his family were to move to Croydon three years later
Although Gillett’s son Robert would eventually take his place in the business, he was not involved early on, having travelled over to America as a young man in his 20s. While there, he met his wife, marrying Ada Shipley in Pickaway County, Ohio, just south of the state capital Columbus, in October 1871.
By the time of the 1881 census, he and his wife were back in England, living at 115 Whitehorse Road with their six children. The first four of their children had been born in America.
In 1877, Arthur Johnstone bought a partnership in the firm. When Charles Bland died in 1884, the company name was changed to Gillett and Co.
Around the early 1880s, the company extended its manufacturing capacity by constructing a bell foundry, to supply their own bells for their clocks. By the late 1870s, Johnstone took over full control of the foundry.
One of the most significant local contracts which the firm won was to replace the clock in the tower at Croydon Parish Church after the catastrophic fire of 1867. Together with new bells, the cost to the church was about £2,000 – worth about £280,000 today, allowing for inflation.
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Mechanical marvels: Gillett and Bland’s clocks became admired around the world for their ingenuity and modernity
The chiming machine which was installed was a newly patented one, similar to those which had been installed in Boston Church and Macclesfield Church. However, in their home town, Gillett and Brand wanted something special. The new chiming machine in Croydon Parish Church, as well as being simpler and more durable, had a significant improvement in the way the mechanism allowed the hammers to strike the bells.
As well as a system of cams which moved the striking mechanism, the wooden barrel could be played using one’s fingers. One of the vicar’s daughters created quite a stir when she played it “on several occasions with great success”.
The Croydon Times reported that they believed that this was the first occasion on record that “a lady had played on church bells using a chiming machine”. A finger board was attached to the barrel and the chimes played as easily as a church organ or pianoforte. This couldn’t have been achieved with the earlier models.
Another advantage of the new system was that the wooden barrel was small, just 10 inches in diameter and 14 inches in length. This meant that it only took up a quarter of the space that the old one did, allowing it to be installed in church towers where previously there was not enough room.
The new clock in Croydon Parish Church played a different hymn tune for each day of the week. Locals would get to know it was Monday without any other reference because that was the day the clock played the Sicilian Mariner’s Hymn Tune. The tune was played three times, every three hours, day and night, with the change to a new tune being automatically programmed for midnight. Thursday was London New, more familiar as God Moves in a Mysterious Way.
Saturday was Manchester, which was the tune for How sweet the name of Jesus sounds. I wonder how many hours were spent discussing the choice of which hymn tunes would be included? Perhaps Gillett and Bland just asked the vicar, Rev Hodgson, for his choice?
Each tune was played in the key of D major. Eight bells could be used in any musical arrangement, but the mechanism was set up so that it could incorporate two more bells at a future date.
Within a few years of installing the new mechanism here in Croydon, Gillett and Bland was stating in their adverts that they were “the sole inventors of the keyboard for playing tunes upon large church bells with the fingers, as easily as playing upon the piano”. They stated that they had no connection to other firms who were claiming that they could install a clock with this same mechanism.
By 1879, advertisements were appearing which informed customers that Gillett, Brand and Co were clockmakers to her Majesty Queen Victoria. They proudly announced that they had constructed the clock at the Dairy Farm, Windsor Castle.
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Clockmakers to the Queen: Gillett’s company made much of its association with royalty
Their patent carillon machine, now being widely installed up and down the land, “could play any number of tunes on any number of bells”.
It wasn’t just in this country that their bells could be heard. Malaga Cathedral and Seville Cathedral in Spain were just two of their European contracts at that time.
Gillett, already a widower and with Richard his only child, died In Caroline Villa, Gladstone Road in Croydon. His estate was worth £5,010 10s – more than £800,000 today.
Ten years after William Gillett died, the firm won the contract to build the clock tower at Croydon Town Hall. A considerable crowd gathered in the street below to hear the first chimes in May 1896, although there was no ceremony inside the building. The clock and bells were paid for by the Mayor, Alderman Sir Frederick Eldridge, who, the Croydon Times reported, “had conferred still another boon on the inhabitants of the Borough”.
An interesting fact about the five bells which were hung in the Town Hall tower was that the metal from which they were made was taken from part of the siren that was used for many years on the Eddystone Lighthouse, off the coast of Cornwall. Recycling, or upcycling, was even a thing back in the 1890s.
Gillett’s legacy was a company that was highly successful in the first half of the 20th Century. Between its formation in 1844 and 1950, more than 14,000 tower clock installations were manufactured in their Croydon factory.
The company occupied the same site on Union Road, off Whitehorse Road, from 1844 until the closure of the works in 1957. After the company’s closure in 1957, the premises were given over to other industrial uses. The main buildings, including the clock tower, were eventually demolished in 1997. The greater part of the site is now occupied by a self-storage facility.
The Mail Coach pub on the corner of Union Road and Whitehorse Road was renamed Ye Olde Clocktower in memory of the firm and its works.
A firm that carries the company name, Gillett and Johnston (Croydon) Ltd, is still in business today, run by the Coombes family, with a clock restoration and repair focus. They celebrated the 160th anniversary of the firm with a service at Croydon Minster in 2004 which ended in a ringing of the bells. Old William would have been delighted to hear about the longevity of the business he started all those years ago.
David Morgan, pictured right, is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster, who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at [email protected]
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