Instruments · Marine chronometer
Marine chronometer by Joseph Kirner, United Kingdom, 1860
- Maker / attribution
- Joseph Kirner (creator); Litherland, Davies und Co., Peter (creator)
- Date
- 1860
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- United Kingdom
- Place
- United Kingdom
- Object type
- Marine chronometer
- Holding institution
- German Clock Museum
- Accession / object no.
- Museu_ProvidedCHO_museum_digital_57234__technical_number_
- Catalogue title (original)
- Marinechronometer, Joseph Kirner, Hampstead, um 1860 (German)
Record summary
Held and catalogued by German Clock Museum (object number Museu_ProvidedCHO_museum_digital_57234__technical_number_), this is a marine chronometer by Joseph Kirner, made in United Kingdom, dated 1860. The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Instruments collection. 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 from German Clock Museum (German)
Im Laufe des 19. Jahrhunderts ließen sich vermehrt Uhrenhändler aus dem Schwarzwald im Ausland nieder. In den Läden selbst fand sich das ganze Sortiment von Groß- und Kleinuhren, nicht nur Produkte aus dem Schwarzwald. Eine Vielzahl von Wand- und Taschenuhren zeigt uns noch heute die Verbindung von Schwarzwälder Familiennamen mit ausländischen Ortsbezeichnungen, beispielsweise das Zifferblatt dieses Marinechronometers: Joseph Kirner lebte in Hampstead. (Deutsches Uhrenmuseum Furtwangen)
Shown in the original language of the source catalogue. An editor-reviewed English translation has not yet been published; we do not publish machine translations as authoritative text.
Historical context
Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
American interchangeable-parts manufacture; railroad time standards; Swiss and German factory systems.
Instruments spread into industry, science and sport: stopwatches, chronoscopes, metronomes, watchmen's clocks and time recorders.
Read the period in the timelineMore instruments from this periodEarlier: Precision & Scientific Horology
Atlas type guide
Marine chronometers
A marine chronometer is a precision timekeeper carried at sea to find longitude: the navigator compares local noon, observed with a sextant, with the time at a reference meridian kept by the chronometer. Each hour of difference corresponds to fifteen degrees of longitude. John Harrison proved the method in the 1760s; Pierre Le Roy, Ferdinand Berthoud, John Arnold and Thomas Earnshaw then developed the detent escapement and the compensation balance that made chronometers practical to manufacture.
By the nineteenth century London, Liverpool, Le Locle and Glashütte supplied navies and merchant fleets. A typical box chronometer has a spring-detent escapement, a fusee to equalise mainspring torque, a bimetallic compensation balance with a helical balance spring, and is mounted in gimbals inside a wooden box so that it stays level.
What to look for
- Gimbals and a three-tier wooden box with a glazed inner lid.
- A power-reserve ('up and down') indicator on the dial, usually showing 56 hours on two-day instruments.
- Spring-detent escapement and a cylindrical (helical) balance spring visible through the movement.
- Admiralty or navy marks (broad arrow), and rating certificates from observatories.
- The maker's number on the dial and movement; many makers' registers survive, allowing dating.
Dating clues
- Earnshaw-type spring-detent chronometers became standard after about 1800.
- Auxiliary compensation devices on the balance appear from the mid-nineteenth century.
- Quartz and radio time signals ended routine use of mechanical chronometers in the 1970s and 1980s.
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.
Read next:Spring detent escapementFuseeBalance spring (hairspring)Detent escapement
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