British Domestic Synchronous Clocks 1930-1980

British Domestic Synchronous Clocks 1930-1980
Author: Leslie Philip Pook
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2015-01-20
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3319143883

This book complements available one-make books on domestic synchronous clocks. It is also a history of science book that sets British domestic synchronous clocks, their manufacturers and technology in their social context. Part I covers the historical background, British domestic synchronous clock manufacturers and brands, how synchronous clocks work, domestic synchronous clock cases, practical advice on the servicing of domestic synchronous clocks and analysis of the marketing and reliability of British domestic synchronous clocks. This analysis provides an explanation of the rise and eventual fall of their technology. Part II contains galleries of a selection of British domestic synchronous clocks and of the movements with which they are fitted. There is a front and back view of each clock, together with a brief description. Views of each movement include views with the movement partly dismantled, together with a brief technical description of the movement. This profusely illustrated book is primarily for fellow enthusiasts and is based on an extensive archive of information on domestic synchronous clocks, their movements and their manufacturers. Current electrical regulations mean that professional clockmakers are reluctant to repair synchronous clocks. In fact, provided that they have not been mistreated, synchronous clocks are usually reliable, and quite easy to maintain.

Clockmaking in England and Wales in the Twentieth Century

Clockmaking in England and Wales in the Twentieth Century
Author: John Glanville
Publisher: Crowood
Total Pages: 1144
Release: 2015-03-23
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1847978967

Over a decade John Glanville and Bill Wolmuth undertook an important horological project for the British Museum. This involved establishing a representative collection, for the Museum, of twentieth-century domestic mechanical clocks made in England and Wales using industrialized manufacturing methods. This remarkable book is the culmination of their efforts. Wide-ranging in its coverage, it will be a key reference tool for horologists, horoligical students, collectors, and antiques and clock dealers. It provides a comprehensive history of each significant manufacturer, including the principal people involved and covers the various mechanical clock movements that were produced. Previously unpublished research about the manufacturers, the clocks they made and the dates when they were manufactured is presented. Finally, this book informs readers how they can identify and date almost all of the clocks they are likely to encounter. This detailed and meticulously researched book on the domestic mechanical clocks made in England and Wales in the twentieth century, a culmination of ten years' research by the authors, will be a key reference tool for horologists, horological students, collectors, and clock and antiques dealers. Superbly illustrated with 1016 colour photographs and period black and white illustrations.

A Long Time in Making

A Long Time in Making
Author: James Nye
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 438
Release: 2014-10-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0191026786

Smiths Group (formerly Smiths Industries), part of the UK FTSE 100 index, is a global engineering company with a market capitalisation over £5bn. Evolving from beginnings in the Victorian jewellery trade, to significant market presences in the twentieth century motor accessory, clock and watch industries, it has reinvented itself again as a diversified international company, operating in the medical, communications, security and engineered components sectors. Its narrative history, illuminating the reasons for its survival and adaptability, offers useful data and information to aid wider research into questions such as the legitimacy of conglomerates as a business model, the creation and maintenance of corporate culture, issues of succession, the effects of mergers and the questionable value placed upon targeted synergies-even the role of serendipity. The story begins with several generations of the Smith family amassing a fortune in retail, and then, following a 1914 stock-market flotation, describes the transition from family run business to the development of a professionally-run managerial enterprise. Since the 1970s it has had to face the decline of major markets and competitive pressures, leading to the adoption of new business lines, globalisation, and the internationalisation of its workforce. It now has 23,000 employees across more than 50 countries-along the way shocking the markets by abandoning core businesses and undergoing a controversial merger. Unfettered access to company records, and interviews with former staff members, provide insights into the strategy and management of the firm, illuminating the rich culture of Smiths, characterised by the frequent fostering of technical brilliance and a cast of larger than life characters.

A General History of Horology

A General History of Horology
Author: Anthony Turner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 738
Release: 2022-06-28
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 019260936X

A General History of Horology describes instruments used for the finding and measurement of time from Antiquity to the 21st century. In geographical scope it ranges from East Asia to the Americas. The instruments described are set in their technical and social contexts, and there is also discussion of the literature, the historiography and the collecting of the subject. The book features the use of case studies to represent larger topics that cannot be completely covered in a single book. The international body of authors have endeavoured to offer a fully world-wide survey accessible to students, historians, collectors, and the general reader, based on a firm understanding of the technical basis of the subject. At the same time as the work offers a synthesis of current knowledge of the subject, it also incorporates the results of some fundamental, new and original research.

Vistas in Astronomy

Vistas in Astronomy
Author: P. Beer
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 653
Release: 2016-06-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1483160912

Vistas in Astronomy

Restoring Grandfather Clocks

Restoring Grandfather Clocks
Author: Eric Smith
Publisher: The Crowood Press
Total Pages: 400
Release: 1995-03-01
Genre: Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN: 0719831644

The grandfather clock, an entirely new kind of furniture, first appeared in the late seventeenth century. From then on, with its long case to protect pendulum and weights, its rugged movement and large, clear indication of time, it has been a success story right up to the present day. Virtually none of these clocks is beyond repair and often the work required is within the scope of inexperienced owners. This is the first full-length book to cover repair and restoration of these attractive and often valuable antiques, including their casework. The first part outlines how to clean and service the clock 'works' and also how to refurbish the dial, while in the second part restoration or casework, both structural repairs and finishing, is considered. The illustrations are of two actual clocks (one eight-day and one thirty-hour) and work proceeding on them. The last part of the book sketches common variations from these particular examples. Armed with this book and appropriate tools (for work on both movement and case), the owner of a dilapidated grandfather clock will be encouraged and given the know-how to restore it to life as a useful and attractive clock and a prized possession.

Mastered by the Clock

Mastered by the Clock
Author: Mark M. Smith
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2000-11-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807864579

Mastered by the Clock is the first work to explore the evolution of clock-based time consciousness in the American South. Challenging traditional assumptions about the plantation economy's reliance on a premodern, nature-based conception of time, Mark M. Smith shows how and why southerners--particularly masters and their slaves--came to view the clock as a legitimate arbiter of time. Drawing on an extraordinary range of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century archival sources, Smith demonstrates that white southern slaveholders began to incorporate this new sense of time in the 1830s. Influenced by colonial merchants' fascination with time thrift, by a long-held familiarity with urban, public time, by the transport and market revolution in the South, and by their own qualified embrace of modernity, slaveowners began to purchase timepieces in growing numbers, adopting a clock-based conception of time and attempting in turn to instill a similar consciousness in their slaves. But, forbidden to own watches themselves, slaves did not internalize this idea to the same degree as their masters, and slaveholders found themselves dependent as much on the whip as on the clock when enforcing slaves' obedience to time. Ironically, Smith shows, freedom largely consolidated the dependence of masters as well as freedpeople on the clock.