Francis Magniac

St. John´s Square, Clerkenwell. A manufacturer of complicated clocks and automata c. 1770-1814. He made for the Emperor of China two musical clocks with figures of soldiers, birds and beasts which set in motion at the hours. He was Colonel in Command of the Clerkenwell Volunteers, organised in 1797 and disbanded in 1814.
(Ord-Hume, Music Box, 1980, p. 316-317)