Joseph Knibb
| Joseph Knibb | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1640 Claydon, Oxfordshire |
| Died | 1711 Hanslope, Buckinghamshire |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation | Clock- and watchmaker |
| Known for | inventor of Roman striking, tic-tac escapement and probably anchor escapement |
Joseph Knibb (1640–1711) was an English clockmaker of the Restoration era.
He was born in 1640, the fifth son of Thomas Knibb, yeoman of Claydon. He was cousin to Samuel Knibb, clockmaker, to whom he may have been apprenticed in about 1655. After serving his seven years he moved to Oxford in 1663, the year Samuel moved to London.
Knibb set up premises in St Clement's, Oxford, where he was outside the city liberties. In 1665 or 1666 he moved to premises in Holywell Street, which was within the city liberties. The freemen of the city objected to his presence, demanding that he “suddenly shut his windows” because he was not a freeman of the city.
Knibb applied for the Freedom of Oxford twice in 1667 but on both occasions the smiths and watchmakers of the city objected and he was refused. In February 1668 he was finally admitted to the freedom in a compromise arrangement in which he was officially recorded as being employed by Trinity College, Oxford as a gardener and paid a fine of 20 nobles (£6.13s.4d.) and a leather bucket.
In 1669 Wadham College, Oxford had a new turret clock built and from 1671 to 1721 Knibb's younger brother John was paid £1 per year to maintain it. It is the earliest surviving clock with an anchor escapement, and may even be the first such clock ever built. In 1954 the antiquarian horologist Dr. C.F.C. Beeson proposed the theory that Joseph Knibb had built the clock. Beeson's theory has since become widely accepted.
By 1670 Knibb had moved to London where he was made free of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers. Initially he set up business at the Dyal, near Serjeant's Inn in Fleet Street, subsequently moving to the House at the Dyal, in Suffolk Street. He was elected as a steward of the Clockmakers Company in August 1684 and assistant in July 1689. He retired from London in 1697 and went to live in Hanslope in Buckinghamshire, where he continued to make clocks until his death in 1711.
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