Ellicott - The first John Ellicott, watchmaker, whose parents came to London from Bodmin in Cornwall, was apprentice to John Waters in 1687. Admitted to the freedom of the Clockmakers' Company in 1696, elected on the Court of Assistants in 1726, he served as Warden from 1731 till his death in 1733. He resided in the parish of All Hallow, London Wall. He was an excellent craftsman and there exists one movement by him, dating from soon after 1700, of a very thin watch, measuring 1/5 inch only between the plates. Such watches are now extremely rare, but a few are known to have been made by Quare. Another watch by him has a very early example of a centre seconds hand. He often concealed his name under the cock and balance. The most eminent watch and clocktnaker of the family was his son John Ellicott, born in 1706, who established himself in business about 1728 at Sweeting's Alley, which was situated just where the statue of Rowland Hill now stands, near the Royal Exchange. After the fire which destroyed the Royal Exchange in 1838, Sweeting's Alley was not rebuilt. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1738, being recommended for that honour by Sir Hans Sloane, Bart, Martin Folkes, John Senex, the celebrated globe maker, and John Hadley, the astronomer. At the meeting of the Royal Society, he became acquainted with James Ferguson, who afterwards frequently visited Ellicott's private house, at St. John's Hackney, where an observatory was fitted up, and various scientific experiments were made. Ellicott was the inventor of a compensation pendulum in which the bob rests on the longer ends of two levers, of which the shorter ends are depressed by the superior expansion of a brass bar attached to the pendulum rod. It tended to operate in jerks and was not widely used. Ellicott's productions were distinguished by excellent workmanship. I-1e paid great attention to the cylinder escapement, and did much to bring it into use. He appears to have adopted it only two or three years after its invention by Graham in 1726. In some of his later examples, the cylinders were of ruby. His more costly watches were lavishly decorated, the cases in repousse, and the clials enamelled on golcl. Ellicott was on the council of the Royal Society for three years, and read several papers before the Society. They included one on the inJlueace which two Pendulums Clocks were observed to have on. each other. John Ellicott seems to have used one series of numbers for his watches. An early number, 123, elates from 1728, at about the time he set up in Sweeting's Alley. The last known example bearing his name 'john Ellicott London", is No. 4315, dating from 1760, after which the signature became "Ellicott", and later 'John Ellicott & Son". The series was continued after John's death, and in the Guildhall Museum is a watch of 1787 with the number 8319.