NEALE, John (fl.1742-1761) — London
Watchmaker, clockmaker, instrument-maker and globemaker. Patented a quadrantal planetarium machine in 1744. Also sold waywisers and published ‘Longitude delineated : or, the exact difference of time between all the chief towns and cities throughout His Majesty’s British dominions’ 1744, as well as his ‘The description of the planetary machine : for which His Majesty has granted his Royal Patent’ 1745. His shop on Fleet Street was in the centre of a row of nine shops immediately under the church. He wrote and published ‘Directions for gentlemen who have electrical machines, how to proceed in making their experiments’ 1747 and ‘Universal rules to be observed in the right conducting electrical experiments’ 1752. He also performed public scientific experiments and offered to give private lectures on globes and orreries. Edward Moore, ‘A supplement to all former treatises on the use of globes, render’d necessary from the late improvements exhibited to the public on Mr. Neale’s patent globes’ was published in 1751. ‘A description of Mr. Neale’s terrestrial patent globe’, with a hand-coloured engraving of it, was published by John Hinton (see BME 2011) in the Universal Magazine for March 1753 (pp.118-122). For a time in 1755, he tutored James Watt (1736-1819), the celebrated Scottish inventor, famous for his steam engine. Watt’s travelling companion, John Marr, noted of Neale that he was “the frankest tradesman of any of the fraternity I have seen”. Neale also issued John Bevis, ‘Proposals for publishing by subscription, Uranographia Britannica’ (a celestial atlas) 1749, advertised the previous year as “an exact survey of the heavens, on fifty large copper-plates; wherein are represented, in their places to the present time, all the fix’d stars” (Northamptonshire Mercury, 11 Apr 1748): the work was never formally published, although sets of the plates survive — “one of the least known and most melancholy episodes in the history of astronomy” (Bates). The already printed plates were sequestered by the Court of Chancery and Neale declared bankrupt in 1750.
The son of John Neale, pinmaker, of Abington Street, Northampton. Apprenticed (Skinners) to the watchmaker Jonathan Houilliere in 1730. Free (Skinners) 2 May 1738. He married Henrietta Whateley (b.1719), as a widower, at St. Katherine Coleman Street 4 Aug 1748. The couple had six or seven children in the following years, with a number of daughters baptised at St. Katherine Cree on Leadenhall Street. He was declared bankrupt for a second time in 1758, referred to as “watchmaker, broker and chapman”. He was a prisoner for debt in the Poultry Compter for debt in September 1761, under compulsion to produce a schedule of his estate and effects for the benefit of his creditors (London Gazette, 26 Sep 1761). No more was reported of the matter and Neale’s apprentice Stephen Rogers was turned over to a new master at this time, suggesting that he may have died. He has not been further traced, nor are any of his globes known to be extant, although Daniel Fenning’s ‘A new and easy guide to the use of the globes’ continued to contain ‘Observations on Mr. Neale’s patent globes’ in editions as late as 1769. The BM (1958,1201.2349) has a gold pair-cased watch by Neale, the dial with apertures showing the time in eleven different locations (Antigua, Canaries, Brazil, Mexico, Strait of Anian, London, Russia, Italy, Strait of Uries, China and Persia) which would appear to date from as late as 1770. On 2 Jun 1752, Benjamin Franklin (see AME) wrote to the London bookseller William Strahan requesting, “a pair of Mrs. [Mary] Senex’s improv’d globes, recommended in the Transactions of the Royal Society, (or Neal’s improv’d globes, if thought better than Senex’s) the best and largest that may be had for (not exceeding) eight guineas”. For Mary Senex see BME 2011.
Leadenhall Street (home) — 1744-1758
King’s Arms & Dial, under St. Dunstan’s, Fleet Street (shop) — 1745-1746
Adams Court, Broad Street — 1761
Apprentices: Francis Gabriel Barraud 1742; Ian David Theodore More 1745; John Raymond 1748; Henry Kemp 1750; Timothy Jordan 1751; Bernard Steers 1752; Richard Applin 1752; James Yeoman 1752; Stephen Rogers 1756; John Furment, t/o from Henry Perkins 1756; Edward Weston 1758.
David L. Bates, ‘Naturae Accedere Partes: The Northampton Philosophical Society Revisited’, Northamptonshire Past and Present, vol. 53, 2000. BM. BNA. Clifton. LG. LHD. Taylor (1966).
