Lecturer in Horology at Birmingham City University. Curator Emeritus, National maritime Museum. Research interests include: time-related instruments as material culture, precision timekeepers in the workplace, 18th century clock and watch-making practice and networks, time measurement in the history of science, and specific interest in the life and work of George Graham (c.1673-1751) Address: United Kingdom
In 2009, an unusual seventeenth-century table clock by Parisian clockmaker Isaac Thuret came to l... more In 2009, an unusual seventeenth-century table clock by Parisian clockmaker Isaac Thuret came to light in a French auction room. The unique shape of the case and empty holes on the movement plates strongly suggested that the clock had originally been made to demonstrate the then-new technology of the spiral balance spring. Through study of the clock, its restoration, seventeenth century sources, and recent scholarship, the article presents the dispute over patent rights to the spiral balance spring and opens a discussion on methodologies for dating religieuse clocks of the 1670s.
Brings together the output of a forty-year collaborative research project that unpicked and put i... more Brings together the output of a forty-year collaborative research project that unpicked and put into practice the fine details of John Harrison's extraordinary pendulum clock system. Harrison predicted that his unique method of making pendulum clocks could provide as much as one-hundred-times the stability of those made by his contemporaries. However, his final publication, which promised to describe the system, was a chaotic jumble of information, much of which had nothing to do with clockwork. One contemporary reviewer of Harrison's book could only suggest that the end result was a product of Harrison's 'superannuated dotage.' The focus of this book centres on the making, adjusting, and testing of Clock B which was the subject of various trials at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. The modern history of Clock B is accompanied by scientific analysis of the clock system, Clock B's performance, the methods of data-gathering alongside historical perspectives on ...
This chapter provides historical context to the development of the precision pendulum clock. It p... more This chapter provides historical context to the development of the precision pendulum clock. It primarily looks at the historical astronomical clocks at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich; their use, acquisition, and modification to demonstrate that there was continual desire for better timekeeping in the Observatory. It argues that the core theoretical principals in clock making began with Robert Hooke’s demonstration to the Royal Society in 1669 and remained largely unchanged through to the obsolescence of pendulum time standards in the mid-1900s. By studying historical experiments into the effects of weather variation on pendulum clocks, it will familiarise the reader with the physical effects on pendulum clocks that are critical to the study of Martin Burgess’s Clock B.
To mark the centenary of the sinking of RMS Titanic on 15 April 1912, the National Maritime Museu... more To mark the centenary of the sinking of RMS Titanic on 15 April 1912, the National Maritime Museum (NMM) put on an exhibition entitled Titanic Remembered, which highlighted some of the stories told by survivors of the disaster to Walter Lord, who wrote the book A Night to Remember on which the 1957 film of the same name was based. When the exhibition closed at the end of September 2012, there was a brief opportunity to research one of the Museum's evocative Titanic-related items, an 18-carat gold open faced pocket watch, before it returned to its usual permanent display. This paper discusses the study of the pocket watch using X-ray imaging and computed tomography (CT) and evaluates the outcomes of the investigation.
Following a successful peer-reviewed trial of a precision clock, built according to an understand... more Following a successful peer-reviewed trial of a precision clock, built according to an understanding of John Harrison's method, this article details the methodology of testing and outlines the performance of the clock during the trial period.
In his 1734 discourse on the planetarium, John Theophilus Desaguliers was careful to point out th... more In his 1734 discourse on the planetarium, John Theophilus Desaguliers was careful to point out that the invention of the orrery had been incorrectly attributed to John Rowley and that it was George Graham who had made the first truthful working model of the Earth and Moon’s motion around the Sun. Two such models by Graham survive in Museum collections: one at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago and the other at the History of Science Museum in Oxford, UK. This paper assesses the differences between the two instruments and the physical evidence contained within to test out the unfounded assertion made by Henry C. King that the Adler instrument is the prototype and the Oxford orrery a developed commercial product.
In 2009, an unusual seventeenth-century table clock by Parisian clockmaker Isaac Thuret came to l... more In 2009, an unusual seventeenth-century table clock by Parisian clockmaker Isaac Thuret came to light in a French auction room. The unique shape of the case and empty holes on the movement plates strongly suggested that the clock had originally been made to demonstrate the then-new technology of the spiral balance spring. Through study of the clock, its restoration, seventeenth century sources, and recent scholarship, the article presents the dispute over patent rights to the spiral balance spring and opens a discussion on methodologies for dating religieuse clocks of the 1670s.
Brings together the output of a forty-year collaborative research project that unpicked and put i... more Brings together the output of a forty-year collaborative research project that unpicked and put into practice the fine details of John Harrison's extraordinary pendulum clock system. Harrison predicted that his unique method of making pendulum clocks could provide as much as one-hundred-times the stability of those made by his contemporaries. However, his final publication, which promised to describe the system, was a chaotic jumble of information, much of which had nothing to do with clockwork. One contemporary reviewer of Harrison's book could only suggest that the end result was a product of Harrison's 'superannuated dotage.' The focus of this book centres on the making, adjusting, and testing of Clock B which was the subject of various trials at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. The modern history of Clock B is accompanied by scientific analysis of the clock system, Clock B's performance, the methods of data-gathering alongside historical perspectives on ...
This chapter provides historical context to the development of the precision pendulum clock. It p... more This chapter provides historical context to the development of the precision pendulum clock. It primarily looks at the historical astronomical clocks at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich; their use, acquisition, and modification to demonstrate that there was continual desire for better timekeeping in the Observatory. It argues that the core theoretical principals in clock making began with Robert Hooke’s demonstration to the Royal Society in 1669 and remained largely unchanged through to the obsolescence of pendulum time standards in the mid-1900s. By studying historical experiments into the effects of weather variation on pendulum clocks, it will familiarise the reader with the physical effects on pendulum clocks that are critical to the study of Martin Burgess’s Clock B.
To mark the centenary of the sinking of RMS Titanic on 15 April 1912, the National Maritime Museu... more To mark the centenary of the sinking of RMS Titanic on 15 April 1912, the National Maritime Museum (NMM) put on an exhibition entitled Titanic Remembered, which highlighted some of the stories told by survivors of the disaster to Walter Lord, who wrote the book A Night to Remember on which the 1957 film of the same name was based. When the exhibition closed at the end of September 2012, there was a brief opportunity to research one of the Museum's evocative Titanic-related items, an 18-carat gold open faced pocket watch, before it returned to its usual permanent display. This paper discusses the study of the pocket watch using X-ray imaging and computed tomography (CT) and evaluates the outcomes of the investigation.
Following a successful peer-reviewed trial of a precision clock, built according to an understand... more Following a successful peer-reviewed trial of a precision clock, built according to an understanding of John Harrison's method, this article details the methodology of testing and outlines the performance of the clock during the trial period.
In his 1734 discourse on the planetarium, John Theophilus Desaguliers was careful to point out th... more In his 1734 discourse on the planetarium, John Theophilus Desaguliers was careful to point out that the invention of the orrery had been incorrectly attributed to John Rowley and that it was George Graham who had made the first truthful working model of the Earth and Moon’s motion around the Sun. Two such models by Graham survive in Museum collections: one at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago and the other at the History of Science Museum in Oxford, UK. This paper assesses the differences between the two instruments and the physical evidence contained within to test out the unfounded assertion made by Henry C. King that the Adler instrument is the prototype and the Oxford orrery a developed commercial product.
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