Jan van Call ( - 1667)
Field(s) of interest: scientific instruments | horologyGender: male
Died: Nijmegen, ~1667
Biography:
Jan (Backer) van Call was a German-born instrument maker who lived in Battenberg for a while, and thus was also known as 'Jan van Batenburg'. He was acquainted with Christiaan Huygens, who called him a "vermaert meester". In 1658, he and Salomon Coster were granted a patent for the construction of the pendulum clock. In 1644 he became "carillonist" (a person who plays carillons), timepiece maker and land surveyor for the city of Nijmegen. Van Call designed and made timepieces, pumps, sundials and surveying equipment. He also provided a new clock for the St Jacobs church in Utrecht (1648-1651) and repaired the clock and carillon on the city hall in Delft in 1663.
Collection: Museum for the History of Science, Oxford (Nocturnal, dated 1647, inv. no 34.586)
Occupations:
mathematical instrument maker and horologist: ~1627 - 1644 (Batenburg)
"carillonist" (person who plays carillons) and surveyor: ~1644 (Nijmegen)
mathematical instrument maker and horologist: 1644 - 1657 (Nijmegen)
Sources:
Rooseboom, M., Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis der instrumentmakerskunst in de noordelijke Nederlanden (Leiden 1950).
Morpurgo, E., Nederlandse klokken- en horlogemakers vanaf 1300 (Amsterdam 1970), 23.
Brooks, Randall C., 'Gleaning Information from Screw Threads', in: Bulletin of Scientific Instrument Society 22 (1989), 8.
Schevichaven, H.D.J. van, Het stadhuis van Nijmegen (Nijmegen 1903), 22.
http://uurwerkmuseum.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/de-klok-van-jan-van-call/ (last seen: 15-03-2013).