© 1953 National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, Inc. Reproduction prohibited without written permission.
From this it becomes clear that the saad-clocks varied greatly in the size of the glasses
well as in the saod and the Irame. Concerning the size, one finds some scarcely as long
as a fnger which nevertheless run a full hour, also some which are a good ell in he!,ght,
which it is necessary to turn oyet only after three or four hours have gone by. Vith regard
to the glasses, they are either of quite ordinary style and usually somewhat globulat but
some are also lengthy and where they are joined rogether more pointed so thar these afe
considered the most elegant. The sand is eirher red, and when dug by the sand-dock
makers is washed, died or baked and roasted in a pan so that it becomes nicely red in color
and then is sieved through many different sieves, each one finer than rhe olher urail run
through twenry times. Or if the sand is white, then it is burned from egg shells and
as
prepared in the same way as related of rhe red sand. Tin and lead are also reduced into a
sand and filled into the glasses to indicate the hours correcly. The frames lor the clocks
are usually made of wood or brass and there are some of rhe latter style which can be
tutned so that they can be caried in the pocket, sale and unbroken. Specially made fot
small clocks are frames of ivory and even of silver which are frequently set with precious
stones. \fhen now everything, glasses, saod and frames is made ready to hand then the
clocks are put together io the following manner; the one glass is filled with sand, the small
brass leaf placed thereon and a small hole pierced in it with a oeedle or awl, the other
glass is placed above and cemenred togerher with pitch; then the clo&s thus linished are all
stood up together and the standard clock is turned over. lfhen this one has run our the
new ones are all laid dowo, again opened by good light and what has not run out is poufed
away, and after that they are again wa:<ed shut, wound wirh thread and placed in rhe frames.
ln ending his account \7eigl suggests that the use of the hour-glass in rhe courrs
and churches in his time may have been a continuance of the custom in the
Roman courts of limiting the iength of lawyer's pleadings by the water-clock.
Hans Sachs, the Niirnberg shoemaker poet who lived from 7494 to 1576,
wfote a bit of doggerel to accompany Jost Amman's engmving of the sandclockmaker's shop and describes the working process thus:
"I make the sand-clock
Correct and smooth by measure-
Of clear glass and clay clock-sand
So well that they go long and constant.
Make also wooden frames
In which I carefully enclose rhem.
Color the frames green, gray, red and blue
And in them hours and quarrers tell."
Ir would
seem that a four-glass clock is being described, or is he trying to say
that he makes difierent sizes ranging ftom a fifteen minutes glass to a one hour
IJlass?
In Church qnd Council Chqmber
Chapuis, the Swiss horological authority, is among those who express doubt
of the vety ancient origifl of the hour-glass. In Sw.itzerland rhey were in use
during the fourteenth century, and we read in a town council order of 1398 thar
EIeten
© 1953 National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, Inc. Reproduction prohibited without written permission.
the tolling of the bell was regulated for quarter and half-hour periods by a sandglass. From later tecords dated between I47J and 1506 we can judge that a
higher state of development had bqqn reached. Glasses were being made which
ranged in size from a {ew inches to one foot with time durations in proponion.
They were ptovided with indicator dials and mechanism for automatic turning
in quarter, half-hour and hourly periods. More complicated glasses, it is said,
existed with divisions of hours for days of varying lengths for the entire year
Usually it was the one-hour glasses which wete provided with dial indicatots to
mark the houtly turnings.
Before the Reformation period of the sixteenth century possessioo of me'
chanical clocks was limited to royalty and the dignitaries of clergy and state'
Houses of the upper class citizenry and people of the learned professions had
hour-glasses, othetwise the more prevalent use was with chufch servants such as
sextons and sacristans, the public watch and the like.
The term "sand-cIock" is quoted with sufficient frequency in inventories of
the seventeenth century to indicate more general use, but by the eighteenth century they become scarcet again. The Swiss were ptoducing watches in quantiry;
but the council limitation on tedious discussion by hour-glass timing was still the
rule. A quaint entry in a diary kept by a Swiss barber in 1704 quotes: "I had
nothing to do to-day but to go to church and look at the clepsydta." Should this
be taken as evidence that it was a novelty replacing the hour-glass or as lack of
interest in the sermon? A custom very characteristic of the Swiss, who to this
day are fond of target shooting, is reported in the Mu:keteers ol Neuchatel to the
eflect that in 1730 musket practice was timed by the sand-clock.
As an accessory to church services the hour-glass was probably introduced
during the period known as the Refomation. Before that time sermons wete
comParatively short, and from printed copies extant we may estimate that the
speaking time was from ten to thirty minutes. After Luther (1481-1546\
sermons became longer as the preachers of the diverse sects which grew uP conceived it necessary to preach at length their abstruse doctrinal arguments until,
by the middle of the seventeenth cenrury, Puritan congregations in England were
obliged to endure lectures lasting from two to three hours.
Ptior to the Reformation hour-glasses were perhaps used mainly by individuals to regulate their personal devotions. There is some doubt if they were
used in English churches ot for official aiTairs until some time during the sixteenth
century, although this is not in accord with the accounts of ptactice in other
European countries. The earliest known date of their use in English churches is
in a record of Lambeth Parish for 1-522. On that occasion a new pulpit was
installed with a glass attached. Irom then on numerous parish expense accounts
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for purchases and repairs of houtglasses attest to the common use which continued until after the first half of the
!
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© 1953 National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, Inc. Reproduction prohibited without written permission.
seventeenth cenrury, thereafrer ro decline slowly. An .inventory of 1649 of
articles preserved in the jewel house of the Towet of london lists a "broken hower
glass in a embroidered case." Church warden's expense books record the purchase
of half-hour glasses and an old chest has been found containing three glasses
timed respectively for a quarter, half and full hour.
' Many pulpit glasses were for a running time of one hour, which may have
been considered long enough for a good sermon. Anecdotes have come to us
about the use of hour-glasses in churches, and one of them teils of a dignified
preacher in 1625 who arrived in his regalia at the place of worship "having on a
surplice girt about his middle and a rippet of scarlet on both shoulders, being
attended by a man that brought after him his book and hours-g1ass." Some pulpits
had both hour and half-hour grasses and no doubt the congregation expechntly
observed to see which one would be used to govern the sermon's duration. Another
story concerns the parish clerk who listened through two hour-glasses of oratory
and then departed wirh a request ro the reverend ro lock up the church and place
the key under the door whenever the sermon ended Another preachet, with .r
reputation for long s€rmons on the subject of drunkenness, went on fot three
hours and, although his listeners became restless, continued with the remark,
"we'11 have another glass," a sly reference ro a custom of convivial tavern gfoups
to order a linal drink before closing time.
As always, everyone couldn't be pleased. If the sermon didn't last long
enough the preacher was lazy and lost respect, but if he spoke through too maflv
hour-glasses the audience became impatient, and it becomes a debatable point
whether the hour-glass was made a parr of che church equipment to limit thr
sermons or make sure thar they weren't too shorr. An instance has been found
of a puJpit glass of supposed hour dwation which on trial was found to run only
for fony-eight minutes. Vherher chis made rhe sermon appear shorter to the
congregarion is not stated.
The Iate Queen Victoria had her own opinion of the proper length for a
with an eighteen minute glass. In
her age study periods, music practice and household duties were timed by the
sermon and the Royal Chapel was furnished
hour-glass, Calls to members of Parliament that a division or vote was impendinq
were announced by ringing a bell while the sand ran. In 1951 the custom was
discontinued in favor of an electric timef on the presiding officer's desk. A story
is told of an English company which kept glasses of varying running time for
allotment to speakers at their meetings according to rheir importance and oratoricaJ ability.
The astronomer Tycho Brahe had a glass made to run for twenry-four hours.
It had minute and hour graduations and was filled with calcinated lead instead
of sand. Other astronomers had them with mercury filling, but rhe resuks were
unsarisfacrory; for these the orifice between the bulbs was exceedingly small.
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© 1953 National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, Inc. Reproduction prohibited without written permission.
Rare examples were those which were carried until the eighteengh century by
physicians to count the pulse rate. Sometimes called chronometers, they were
about 6ve inches high and *ere usually timed for fourteen or twenty-eight
seconds. In Scotland the cusrom lingered until after 1750, when medical men
were still using them. Until the beginning of the nineteenth century hout-glasses
of four globes for rhe quarter, half, three-quarters and hour still served in German
churches for the minister's guidance.
Frequently sand-glasses are shown as a symbol of fleeting time, usually on
tombstones and monuments. It was an old custom to place them in coffins as a
sign that the sands of time had run their course, and some antiquarians have
exptessed an opinion thar sma.ll glasses were given at funetals to friends of the
depated to deposit in the grave, as now is done with llowers. Another macabre
custom was to attach them suspended from flowered crossed hoops or gadands
which were carried at funeral processions and then placed in the coffin or hung
in the church. Rather infrequently were they pictured on trade shieids, although
in a few instances they were painted on tavern shields. Possibly their use in
churches rnay have deterred a more common use as a commercial emblem. One
appears in the vignette which has headed the New York Herald,-Tribune fot
many years, and a number of them are carved in the ornamental stone ftames
encasing rhe clocks over the four portals of the Pennsylvania Railroad Station in
New Yotk. On coins and medals hour-glasses were potttayed more often as
symbolic of the passing of time. One rare example was struck on a golden halfsequin bearing on the obaerse the eagle of Vincenzo I of the Gonzag family o{
Mantua and on the reaerse the hour-glass with the da-te 1596 and the motto, Nrc
CITRA NEc ULTRA (Neither Here Nor There), the reference being to the sand
which flows from the upper ampule to the lower. During the years between
1825-1815 an effort was made to prolong the use of the hour-glass as an accessory
of household decoration. Elaboraterly made examples of the previous cenrury
may have motivated the desirg but it was only a passing fancy.
ln the Colonies
Time-telling in the eatly days of the American colonies was not a highly
art. The hours were determined usually by noon-marks on windows,
developed
door sills and other convenient places. Mechanical clocks and water-clock were
scarce pieces
of apparatus- ln 7672( fifty
years after the Pilgrims had landed,
Roger \?rlliams went to debate at Newporr and it was agreed that each pafty
was to have fifteen minutes in turn to argue. But there was no clock in Newport
and no one present had a watch. It appeats from \Tilliams' own account that
not even an hour-glass was available, so rhar rhe time had to be estimated. This
r4ust have been exceptional even for those days, as old inventories show that they
wete objects of household and church equipment.
Fo*rteen