A fine late Georgian mahogany waywiser by Alfred Joy, Chichester

A fine late Georgian mahogany waywiser by Alfred Joy, Chichester, comprising a revolving wheel connected to a recording dial marked in yards and poles on one scale and in furlongs and miles on the other, ‘Alfred Joy Sculpt, Chichester’.  English, circa 1825.

Please see The Science Museum for a very similar waywiser by Harris and Co of London

https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co53037/waywiser-by-w-harris-and-co

Footnote:  This piece is particularly interesting as it was made by a provincial maker, Alfred Joy of Chichester. Our research in the newspaper archives has revealed additional details about Joy and his profession. HE was born around 1801 and died tragically young, aged 43, in 1844 as recorded in the Sussex Advertiser, 23^rd of January of that year. The brief obituary describes Joy as a ‘watchmaker’ but other sources give far more detail about the scope of his business. An advert was placed in the Norfolk Chronicle, 5^th of October 1839, as at that point Joy was bankrupt. The advert had been placed in a Norfolk paper as Joy, though now living and working in Chichester, had previously worked in Great Yarmouth and efforts were being made to trace his creditors there. This advert described Joy as ‘watchmaker and general mechanist’. After Joy’s death, an auction of his tools was held in 1844 and this was advertised in the Hampshire Telegraph, 5^th of February of that year. The advert stated that included in the sale were ‘all the valuable working tools, stock in trade &c. of Mr Alfred Joy, deceased, in North Street….The deceased was very eminent in his profession as Watch and Clock Maker, Engraver and Modeller’.

This explains the interesting inscription on the dial of our piece which reads ‘Alfred Joy Sc_t, Chichester’. Sculpt. implying that Joy not only made the piece but most likely engraved the dial himself given his experience in that field.

Additional contextual information about Joy’s clientele is provided by a letter surviving in West Sussex Record Office that Joy sent to John Abel Smith, the long-serving MP for Chichester, in April of 1843. The letter is an acknowledgement of payment received from Smith for ‘repairs done to ‘clocks, pedometers etc.’ Could our piece have been one of the pedometers clearly used by the town council at this stage?