clock-jobber

plural clock-jobbers

1. obsoleteA person who repairs and maintains clocks.

   The escapement used in French Drum Clocks is a continual source of trouble to English clock jobbers.

   1881, Frederick James Britten, The Watch and Clockmakers’ Handbook, 4th edition, London: W. Kent & Co., page 105

   3 more examples

   1888, The English Mechanic and World of Science, No. 1,199, 16 March, 1888, letter to the editor headed “Organ Matters,” signed Wm. Robinson, p. 59, I am pretty well aware of the number of bunglers, tinkers, and clock-jobbers that have crept into the trade—one of the latter, I am informed, became an organ-builder about five years ago, and by the help of a friendly organist got some work […]

   At four o’clock, when it was fairly dark and Mrs. Hall was screwing up her courage to go in and ask her visitor if he would take some tea, Teddy Henfrey, the clock-jobber, came into the bar.

   1897, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “chapter 2”, in The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC

   I've got a fine old bracket clock—belonged to my grandfather; made for him by Earnshaw, and I set considerable store by it. Now, something has gone wrong with its strike and I don't like to trust it to a common clock-jobber.

   1936, R. Austin Freeman, chapter 19, in The Penrose Mystery

   Synonyms: horologist