John Gaydon

John Gaydon (1821 – 1895) was a British clockmaker and jeweller working in Barnstaple, Devon from around 1855 until his death in 1895. He founded his business with his four younger brothers.

John Gaydon supplied clocks to all of the railway stations along the South West trainline to London and later designed clocks for many of the turrets of North Devon churches. In 1855 he made a clock for Barnstaple police station as well as another bespoke clock for the Globe Hotel, with double dials, one to show in the bar and the other in the smoking room.

The Gaydon family were well established watchmakers and jewellers with twenty-seven of them throughout the 1800s going into the business and the name came to be synonymous with quality time pieces.

Frederick Gaydon, one of the original founding brothers, under the orders of Queen Victoria, did clock maintenance at Hampton Court. Henry Martin Gaydon setup Birch and Gaydon in Fenchurch Street, London and supplied watches to the Admiralty during the First World War. In 1925 he went on to become Master of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers.

The pop star Michael Jackson owned a John Gaydon clock and in 2009 a Gaydon wall clock sold for $35,000 in America.