19th Century T. Quaife Battle 30 Hour Longcase Clock

Thomas Quaife 1806-1889, probably born at Mountfield, although the 1871 census records
his place of birth as Whatlington, was trading in Battle by 1833, with a directory entry as a
watchmaker in 1839. According to Tyler, by 1849 he was working from a site on Hastings
Road almost opposite Loose Farm, where he ran what seems to have been a small factory –
a directory of 1855 describing him as a watch manufacturer, rather than a watch maker.
Although church records show that he was retained to look after the Church clock at 3
guineas a year until at least 1843, watches rather than clocks seem to have been his focus.
In 1853 he patented a method of forming watch cases by use of pressure. He moved from
Battle to Hawkhurst in 1857 when he sold his property to Samuel Carter, of Regent’s Park.
He subsequently exhibited a chiming clock of marble and gold with fifty changes at the
Great Exhibition of 1862.