Morris TOBIAS, 31 Minories London, mid-19th century brass-bound rosewood 2-day marine chronometer

Object Description

MORRIS TOBIAS, LONDON N° 1199

A fine mid-19th century brass-bound rosewood two-day marine chronometer by this well-known London precision clockmaker.
The three-tier rosewood case is neatly brass bound throughout, with reinforced corners and flush brass straps, and a vacant brass cartouche to the top lid. The front of the middle tier has a brass twelve-point star push button, above a circular ivory plaque engraved 1199, and the sides are fitted with substantial brass carrying handles. Inside, the chronometer bowl sits in a brass gimbal ring, and it has a glazed dust cover beneath the main lid. There is a retailer’s label for Michael Rupp & Co., New York, to the interior, and it retains its tipsey winding key.
The circular silvered dial is engraved with Roman hour numerals and an outer minute track with Arabic five-minute markers, and it is signed MORRIS TOBIAS 31 MINORIES LONDON and numbered 1199. There is an up/down (power reserve) indication at XII marked, and a small seconds dial at VI, also numbered 1199.

Object History

Provenance: Property of Baron Stanley Kalms (1931–2025).

Object Literature

*Morris Tobias is recorded as a London chronometer-maker at 31 Minories in the early 19th century. The Tobias name appears on a number of well-made two-day marine chronometers of this period, including examples held in the Maritime Museum in Greenwich. He is also recorded in partnership with his nephew Lewis Levitt in the 1820s, before continuing under his own name.
Morris Tobias is listed on page 245 of Tony Mercer’s Chronometer Makers of the World: Revised Edition (featuring a diagram of his auxiliary compensation) and page 773 of Brian Loomes’ Watchmakers and Clockmakers of the World: Complete 21st Century Edition.
Morris Tobias (c.1758/68–1846) was a London chronometer and watchmaker closely associated with the maritime trade, working first in Wapping and later at 31 Minories. By 1792 he is recorded in business at 68 Bell Dock Yard, Wapping, and from about 1802 traded as Tobias & Co in partnership with Myer Isaac Tobias, operating at 68 High Street, Wapping, and also at 5 Pool Lane, Liverpool; that partnership ended in 1810, with the Tobias & Co name briefly retained for a further London partnership that was dissolved in March 1812. In 1812 Tobias took out patent no. 3584 for a binnacle timekeeper that indicated time on ship’s bells, and by 1816 he had moved to 31 Minories, where he formed a partnership with Lewis Levy Levitt which lasted until July 1824.
Although best known for his output as a maker-retailer (often signed “Maker to the Admiralty”), Tobias also participated in the Greenwich chronometer trials: in 1844 he entered chronometer no. 833, which placed 31st out of 35. On his death he left his stock-in-trade to his grand-nephews Isaac Levitt and Morris Tobias Levitt, who continued the concern (the later business lasting into the mid-19th century, before ultimately failing). This chronometer, circa 1845, sits plausibly within the closing phase of Morris Tobias’s working life and may reasonably be attributed to him (or to his workshop/output immediately around his final years).
Examples of Tobias material can be found in major institutional collections today, including: the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (Royal Museums Greenwich), which catalogues an eight-day marine chronometer ZAA0075 attributed to Morris Tobias/John Fletcher (No. 527/3034), illustrating the way Tobias’s work can appear under mixed maker/retailer attributions within the Greenwich holdings. The National Museum of Australia has conserved and documented a “Morris Tobias Marine No 695” chronometer (with surviving box labels and service history). The British Museum also records the wider Tobias output under “Morris Tobias & Co” (including an early-19th-century watch in its collection, museum no. 1958,1201.1165).

Object Details