Stourport Yacht Club

The Town Clock

The SYC Club House is located under the old warehouse, below the Clock Tower. The clock was made by Samuel Thorp in 1813.

Views of the Clock & Tower at Stourport-on-Severn

The Stourport Town Clock By Charles Hadwell skipper of Cee Jay

On the upper left-hand corner of the centre casting is a brass plate inscribed:

Erected by Public Subscription

1813

Made by Samuel Thorp

Abberley

The original subscription list was recently found in an old wallet purchased at a local car-boot sale. How fortunate the finder recognised its significance. Seventy one subscribers are listed donating a total of £247:16s:0d in amounts ranging from one to ten guineas. An additional unspecified sum was raised amongst a few subscribers to cover the difference between the estimated and final cost. (nothing changes when financing public ventures)

In today's money the sum collected would be over £6000. Among the subscribers were two MPs, the directors of the Canal Company - the source of Stourport's prosperity, the Vinegar Works, the Swan Hotel, the Red and White Lion and the Bell public houses together with businesses and names still of note in the town today. The following note on the original list is worthy of comment:

'Sir Edwd Littleton Bt, Thos & James Perry of Wolverhampton Esqrs. with the other Canal Proprietors give Thos Rowley Junior the grant and liberty to put the Tow Clock on their Warehouse, being the best situation. The Gentlemen of the Town and likewise the wish of the Canal Company that it should be there, till a better situation could be found.'

The formation of English Heritage must have afforded the Town Fathers some relief; they can at last cease their search for a 'better situation'.

The date of 1813 makes the clock 186 years old and in its present position has marked the passage of Stourport's time. To put n into an historical perspective, the clock started its life two years before the battle of Waterloo, the end of the Napoleonic Wars and immediately after the infamous land tax of 1811 and 1812. Stourport must have been a ' boom town'.

Made by Samuel Thorp of Abberley, who was this man living in the remote village of Abberley able to accept and fulfil such a contract? He was born in Madeley, Shropshire, being baptised on 6th Jan 1765, the eldest of three children in a family of modest means. He started his apprenticeship with the celebrated Shrewsbury clock maker Robert Webster in July 1780 at the late age of 15 yrs 6mths. Such a late start could indicate full time education which his will and other surviving examples of his writing support. During this time his locality had three Sunday schools sponsored by Abiah Darby, the widow of Abram Darby II, the Ironbridge iron master and well-known Quaker philanthropist, plus the Grammar School at Wellington, both of which he possibly attended. In his immediate locality all technical advances of the Industrial Revolution wee taking place. He was 16 yrs old when the Iron Bridge was erected.

He came to Abberley sometime in 1790, why is a mystery because as far as can be ascertained he had no connections with the locality. One presumes he saw a business opportunity in 'booming' Stourport and with the owners of the twenty-five or so mansions of the nouveaux riches industrialist in the area. The first reference to Abberley is on an application for a special licence to marry and secondly on a marriage certificate recording a marriage to Mary Newall at Ford in Shropshire on the 20th December 1790. He lived in Abberley village as owner/occupier of a house that was converted into two cottages, 36 and 37, sometime after 1883. There were seven children two of which died in infancy and are the only issue buried at Abberley. He left his clock making business to son Thomas who pre-deceased him by six months. Samuel was buried in the old churchyard in Abberley village on 15th Feb 1838 aged 73 and was joined by Mary on 19th February 1843.

He was a private man; his only recorded contribution in Abberley was to vote against the formation of a Parish council. He paid his Poor law and land taxes in full on demand. In 1823 Samuel lost the contract to maintain the clock through neglect, but in 1819 he had been awarded two tracts of land in the parish of Abberley by the visiting Enclosures Commission on which he build two cottages. He was otherwise employed.

He has been described as a clock maker of more than ordinary ability well able to make clocks equal to the London standards of his day as many of hiss surviving fine clocks testify. His horological abilities ranged from pocket watches, long case clocks from simple 30 hour cottage style to eight day regulators, and including bracket clocks. The better clocks all feature innovations peculiar to themselves. Also surviving is a fine compass used in the Abberley coal mines, two spinning wheels, a sun-dial and five turret clocks.