Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 20th century (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
5 boxes (1.6 linear metres)
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Tom Robinson (1915–1999) was Chairman of the Antiquarian Horological Society from 1985 to 1991. He became a member of the Society in 1956 and contributed actively to its affairs and to its publications for forty years. He served as Editor of Antiquarian Horology in 1962–68 and 1975–78. He was elected to the Council in 1963 and served on the Libraries and Publications Committees for a number of years. During his Chairmanship of the Society he instigated its first specialist sections: he was the first Chairman of the Southern Section and the co-founder and second Chairman of the Turret Clock Group. In 1996 he was elected a Vice President of the Society.
Tom was a qualified Chartered Electrical Engineer, working for the Post Office at the time when it was the only supplier of telecommunications services in the UK. He masterminded the setting up of two of the company's training schools, of which he was the Director: Charles House in Kensington and the school at Kew, from which he retired in 1975.
His interest in horology started at school, when he repaired clocks for friends in his spare time. His later interests focused on the on the seventeenth century, but his broad knowledge and expertise in both clock making and cabinet making were well demonstrated by his major published work, The Longcase Clock (1981, 2nd edition 1995). His unpublished works include the internal catalogues of the remarkable collection of clocks at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Tom was a member of the Furniture History Society from its inception in 1964, of the Conservation Committee of the Council for the Care of Churches, and Chairman of its sub-committee on Clocks Conservation. He also advised the dioceses of Chichester and Guildford on their clocks. He continued with his research right up to his death, his latest interest being lacquer-cased clocks.
Tom shared his horological interests with his wife Eileen (d.2015), to whom he was married for forty-five years and who was a Life Member of the AHS.
Repository
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Deposited at the AHS at Lovat Lane in 2021.
Content and structure area
Scope and content
This collection comprises research papers compiled by Tom Robinson. They include subject files relating to clocks of various types and provenances and to individual makers, as well as photographs.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
No further deposits are expected.
System of arrangement
The collection is arranged into three series, reflecting the original arrangement at the time of deposit.
ROB/01: Subject files: clocks
ROB/02: Subject files: makers
ROB/03: Photographs
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
The Tom Robinson archive is sorted but not catalogued, so it is not available for access at the moment.
Conditions governing reproduction
Language of material
Script of material
Language and script notes
Mostly English
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Finding aids
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
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Notes area
Alternative identifier(s)
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Description control area
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Status
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Dates of creation revision deletion
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Archivist's note
The collection awaits cataloguing.