Edward East (clockmaker)

The office of treasurer was created in 1647, in response to an incident where the renter warden, Mr. Helden, refused to give the usual security for the stock of the company.

East was living on Fleet Street in 1635, as noted by a correspondent of Notes and Queries in the year 1900, who had preserved a document (MS. Return of Strangers within the ward of Farringdon Without) that referred to Edward East as living on Fleet Street, in the parish of St. Dunstan's in the West, and as being the employer of a Dutch man named Elias Dupree.

A large silver alarm clock-watch by Edward East, which was kept at the bedside of Charles I, was presented by the king on his way to execution at Whitehall, on 30 January 1649, to Sir Thomas Herbert.

The collections of Alfred Morrison contain a warrant dated 23 June 1649, issued by the Committee of Public Revenue to Thomas Fauconbridge, Esq., Receiver-General, authorizing him to pay "vnto Mr. Edward East, Watchmaker, the some of fortie pounds for a Watch and a Larum of gould by him made for the late King Charles by directions of the Earle of Pembrooke, by order of the Committee, and deliuered for the late King's use the xviith of January last."

The Ashmolean Museum at Oxford contains a watch made by East with gold case in the form of a melon, studded all over with turquoises, and with a matching blue enamelled pendant.