Clocks · Clock serial number 2012
An eight-day astronomical regulator by Dent, London, number 2012, circa 1874
- Maker / attribution
- Edward John Dent & Co. (maker)
- Date
- 1874
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- London
- Object type
- Clock serial number 2012
- Dimensions
- Overall: 1445 x 445 x 220 mm
- Holding institution
- Royal Museums Greenwich
- Accession / object no.
- ZBA1292
- Credit line
- National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
- Catalogue title (original)
- An eight-day astronomical regulator by Dent, London, number 2012, circa 1874 (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Royal Museums Greenwich (object number ZBA1292), this is a clock serial number 2012 by Edward John Dent & Co., made in London, England, dated 1874. The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: Overall: 1445 x 445 x 220 mm. The record is illustrated with 1 photograph.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Catalogue description — Royal Museums Greenwich
The movement has angled shoulders to the curled and lacquered plates, which are united by four cylindrical screwed pillars. The four-wheel movement has Harrison’s maintaining power and dead-beat escapement. The painted cylindrical driving weight is suspended via a solid brass pulley on a double line to the barrel, which is cut with 13 turns. The movement is fixed to a cast iron bracket with integral A-framed support from which the zinc and steel temperature compensated pendulum is suspended. The painted dial is laid out in traditional regulator fashion and has three circular apertures through which electrical contacts could be observed. These contacts have since been removed. One of 12 regulators commissioned from Dents for the 1874 Transit of Venus expeditions, it was used for the Honolulu observations. A decade later it was installed as the reserve mean solar standard alongside the Shepherd motor clock, which it superseded in 1893. In 1925, under direction of the Astronomer Royal, Sir Frank Dyson (1868-1939), this clock and Dent 2016 were converted to transmit time signals, via telephone, to the BBC for the transmission of the six pips. Both clocks were magnetically corrected by the Shortt free-pendulum clock system.
Historical context
Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
American interchangeable-parts manufacture; railroad time standards; Swiss and German factory systems.
Factory production transformed the clock into an everyday object. American makers (Seth Thomas, Ansonia, Waterbury) and German factories (Junghans, Gustav Becker, Lenzkirch) sold millions of shelf, wall and alarm clocks worldwide; France produced standardised Paris movements and carriage clocks; electric time distribution began.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Precision & Scientific Horology
Atlas type guide
Regulators, wall and Vienna clocks
A regulator is a precision pendulum clock used as a time standard in observatories, workshops and railway offices. Typical features are a deadbeat or Graham escapement, a temperature-compensated pendulum (mercury jar, gridiron or later invar), maintaining power and a regulator dial that separates hours, minutes and seconds. George Graham's deadbeat escapement (c. 1715) and his mercury pendulum, together with Harrison's gridiron, set the pattern for two centuries.
Wall clocks span a much wider range: the elegant Viennese Laterndluhr and Dachluhr of the Biedermeier period, the Dutch stoelklok and staartklok, English 'dial' clocks used in schools, offices and railway stations, and mass-produced spring and weight wall clocks from Germany (Gustav Becker, Junghans, Kienzle) and America.
What to look for
- Deadbeat escapement and compensated pendulum (gridiron rods, mercury jar or wood rod).
- A regulator dial with a large central minute hand and separate hour and seconds dials.
- Vienna regulators: glazed cases, slender pendulum, small weights, enamel two-piece dials.
- German factory trademarks stamped on the backplate (e.g. Gustav Becker anchor and crown, Junghans star).
Dating clues
- Graham-type deadbeat regulators: from c. 1720.
- Viennese Laterndluhr: c. 1800–1850.
- German factory 'Vienna-style' regulators: c. 1870–1930; Gustav Becker serial numbers allow close dating.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
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