William Joyce began in the
North Shropshire village of
Cockshutt making longcase clocks. The family business was handed down from father to son and in 1790 moved to High Street,
Whitchurch, Shropshire. In 1834 Thomas Joyce made large clocks for local churches and public buildings. In 1849 the company copied the Big Ben escapement designed by Lord Grimthorpe. J. B. Joyce also installed
synchronous electric clocks in a number of railway stations, including Liverpool's
Lime Street Station,
Aberystwyth in Wales, and
Carnforth in Lancashire. In 1904 J. B. Joyce moved to Station Road, Whitchurch. John Edgar Howard Smith (19071983), a former managing director of Smith of Derby Group, designed the first and subsequent synchronous electric movements for J. B. Joyce, and their associated electromechanical bell
striking units. In 1964, Norman Joyce, the last member of the Joyce family, retired and sold the company to
Smith of Derby. During the 1970s, many of the mechanical clocks were changed to use the electric motors made by the Smith parent company. However, J. B. Joyce continued to operate as a separate company, with mainly heritage work being carried out in the factory up to 2012, when a timedbid auction was held to sell off surplus equipment, tools, and clock parts, at the Station Road premises. Interior designers, collectors of historic items, and aficionados of J. B. Joyce, joined to bid for a "piece of horological history". == Notable clocks ==