Editor’s Note:
We began writing a generic, informative piece here about Grandfather Clocks and their history. But in the process of editing this blog post, we realized that we really hate these old-fashioned clocks like the plague…as you’ll read at the end. We then decided to change the title of this piece to what you see now. Just roll with it…
Grandfather clocks are part of a larger classification of clocks: pendulum clocks.
Cuckoo clocks and torsion clocks are other types of pendulum clocks.
Grandfather clocks weren’t always called grandfather clocks. They were at one time called “long case clocks“. Grandfather clocks are a natural descendant of the older pendulum clocks when someone realize if they enclosed the whole shebang in a long case, fewer children and pets would interfere with the accuracy of the clock.
The first person to marry pendulum to clock was Christian Huygens in 1656. Two British clock makers, George Graham and William Clement, are credited with enclosing the pendulum clock into a long case. Often Galileo “had a hand in everything” Galileo is accredited with creating the pendulum clock. He did study pendulums and their movement and he even conceptualized the use of pendulums as part of time keeping, but his ideas were manifested into reality after his death.
Long case clocks became known as grandfather clocks after a popular song called: “Grandfather’s Clock“. There’s a story behind the inspiration for this song that I think is part legend and part urban legend. The American songwriter Henry Clay Work had reason to visit England in 1875. During this visit he stayed in a hotel in North Yorkshire named the George Hotel. In the lobby of this hotel was a long case clock. The clock no longer worked. The story was that the clock kept almost perfect time while the brothers who owned the hotel lived. One of the brothers unexpectedly passed away and the clock started losing time. Some people reported that it lost up to an hour a day. They tried winding and repairing it, but there didn’t seem to be a mechanical problem. It was as if the clock mourned the loss of its co-owner. When the other brother passed away, the clock stopped working altogether. When a new manager took over the hotel, he let the clock rest as a silent testament of the brother and tombstone for them. At the time Henry Clay Work visited George Hotel, it was believed that the hands of the clock rested at the time of the second brother’s death. The songwriter was inspired by the story of the clock and wrote his song. The song exploded into popularity forever changing the name of long case clocks to grandfather clocks in the last 1880s.
Here’s Burl Ives singing his cover version of the song “Grandfather’s Clock“. We don’t know which is scarier in this video: the godawful song itself, or those hideous photos of Burl half-naked! In any case, please enjoy: 
Although there are forces in the world that science has yet to explain and may never explain, I believe that the story of the George Hotel clock is a bit too romantic to be fully true. It almost seems like those “too coincidental” or “overly sentimental” stories forwarded from one e-mail address to another. Maybe the clock really did mourn the loss of the brothers or maybe it just broke, it’s not our place to put a definitive stamp of approval on the story.
The name “grandfather clock” paved the way for other common names for long case clocks. “Grandmother clocks” are smaller versions of grandfather clocks. Grandmother clocks also tend to have a more feminine look to them and a tapered “waist” as part of the cabinet design. “Granddaughter clocks” are smaller than grandmother clocks. We’ve been looking for a “grandson clock” made out of baseball bats, football trading cards, gum, bugs, and frogs, but that eludes us.
Pendulum clocks were the first common clock to maintain reliable accuracy and the reason for that accuracy is the pendulum itself. If you read our post on ancient clocks, you know there were some very accurate clocks prior to the pendulum, but it wasn’t practical or possible for people to have these very special clocks in their homes. Grandfather clocks allowed accurate time pieces to be in many homes.
The rate at which a pendulum swings has nothing to do with the weight at the end of a pendulum, but the length of the pendulum. Pendulums could be lengthened or shortened to allow the horologist to perfect the timing of the escapement gear. As long as the clock was wound (originally done with weights not a key) and the pendulum was left undisturbed, the clocks would keep accurate time. The cabinet came around to help protect the pendulum’s swing and that improved the reliability of the clocks a bit. Later, horologists realized that temperature and humidity would affect the clock’s accuracy. Most pendulums are made of metal. Metal will expand and contract with temperature changes. Since the length of the pendulum influences the swing time and the swing time influences the escapement gear, minor changes in length would result in major problems with time keeping. Mechanisms to manually adjust the pendulum were added to increase the accuracy. Some grandfather clocks incorporated mercury and other ways that allowed the clock to self-adjust. By 1721, most grandfather clocks had a variance of a second a day.
Grandfather clocks are prized heirlooms in many families.
But you know what? We hate ‘em. We just hate these old-fashioned, staid, traditional, musty, dust-encrusted remnants of a day and age long gone and now we’re wondering why in the world we even bothered writing about them.
Hopefully there are a few fans of grandfather clocks in our readership who still enjoyed this blog article.
But as for us, we say: give us a sledgehammer and let us at these things.
Our friend The Sledgehammer
Really.
It’s the twenty-first century, people. Time to hook up your TVs to the internet, and simply display our Online Alarm Clock in your living rooms.
Do you want to know why Grandfather Clocks suck? Let us count the ways:
- They’re too big
- They collect mice and rats
- They’re loud as all heck
- They can collect termites and other wood parasites
- They look so old-fashioned it’s like you’re decorating your home with a piece of furniture out of a funeral home
- They break down and need repairing
- They’re expensive
- They require regular cleaning, polishing and dusting
- If you purchase one in an antique store, it’ll most certainly be haunted or possessed by Satan
- They just suck, OK?