Baker Collection of clocks at Fellows

A single-owner collection of clocks, timepieces, and scientific instruments formed over sixty years will go under the hammer at Birmingham’s Fellows Auctioneers in September.

The sale, Clocks and Scientific Instruments: The Baker Collection comprises twenty-nine lots of clocks, timepieces and scientific instruments collected by a renowned antiquarian horologist. The lots date from the 17th to the 20th century and have estimates from £70 to £4,000.

Fellows’ Alison Snowdon said: “It has been an absolute pleasure to handle and catalogue the collection of the late Mike Baker. There is a real variety of makers and styles – personally, it has been a wonderful opportunity to learn more about clocks, timepieces and scientific instruments from makers you rarely see outside museums. I never met Mike, but in reading through his notes and research, I can see how passionate he was about his collection (as well as their survival and restoration). I am very much looking forward to the sale and meeting fellow enthusiasts at our London and Birmingham viewing days.”

Over half a decade of interest in clocks led Stanley Michael Baker, most often known as Mike, to become one of the leading clock restorers in Africa. His career in horology began while he was serving in the Royal Air Force as a fireman in what was then known as Rhodesia, modern-day Zimbabwe. After a fall from a ladder which broke his back, Baker took up a restoration project whilst recuperating. After a friend had commented that a clock of theirs had stopped working, he took up the mantle and set about trying to get it back in working order. His son Peter recalls: “He decided it needed a clean and dunked it whole into some cleaning fluid because he didn’t dare take it apart in case he couldn’t put it back together again. It worked!”

This gamble paid off and it would see the start of his career as an Antiquarian Horologist both in Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom where he returned in the 1970s. In the proceeding years, he mainly undertook private work from his base in Tonbridge, Kent but he was commissioned to work on pieces in grand locales such as in Salisbury Cathedral and Brighton Pavilion.Baker collected items based on his curiosity for more unusual movements and interesting histories, rather than value.

His specific interest was for astronomical pieces amassing three astronomical longcase clocks, chronometers and navigational instruments. Other makers in the collection include Joseph Knibb, Charles Frodsham, Arsene Margaine, E.J Dent, and Thomas Mercer alongside a Japanese Wadokei lantern clock, Bulle electric clock, a French mystery clock in the manner of Guilmet and a repeater carriage clock made for the Chinese market. Within the collection of instruments, there is a Charles Frodsham marine two-day chronometer, a Cary Gould-type monocular, a Henry Porter sextant, and a Cary 5.5in celestial globe.

Peter Baker recalls the story behind the highlight piece in his father’s collection: “His most proud piece was the astronomical grandfather clock for sale as part of this collection. The story goes that he was called out to repair a clock and whilst there was handed a cardboard box. It was explained to him that a grandfather clock case had disintegrated due to woodworm, and as such had been thrown on the bonfire. He was handed the movement, gears, etc. as “spare parts”. Intending to rescue the rest of the clock’s parts, he climbed onto the bonfire and retrieved the rest of the mechanical items. He managed to restore the clock’s workings and had a new long case built from hardwood. His restoration project was included in a write-up in the Antiquarian Horological Society’s paper (AHS Issue 6 1968). Here he detailed an unusual gear which rotated approximately every 2 years. Responses to the article included a suggestion that it was the gestation period of an elephant, but it was determined that the likely explanation was the rotation of Mars.”