Instruments · Marine chronometer
Marine chronometer no. 2150 by Atkins Brockbank & Moore
- Maker / attribution
- Atkins Brockbank & Moore (maker)
- Date
- Unknown (c. 1880?)
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Marine chronometer
- Materials / technique
- wood: mahogany; metal: brass; metal: steel
- Dimensions
- Overall: 225 x 215 x 215 mm
- Holding institution
- Royal Museums Greenwich
- Accession / object no.
- ZAA0196
- Credit line
- National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
- Catalogue title (original)
- 2150 (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Royal Museums Greenwich (object number ZAA0196), this is a marine chronometer by Atkins Brockbank & Moore, dated Unknown (c. 1880?). The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Instruments collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: wood: mahogany; metal: brass; metal: steel. Recorded dimensions: Overall: 225 x 215 x 215 mm. The record is illustrated with 3 photographs.
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
Marine chronometer with an Earnshaw-type spring detent escapement. The early service of this chronometer is unknown. In 1918, it was formally taken on charge by the Observatory from HMS Himalaya. The P&O ship SS Himalaya was purchased by the Royal Navy in 1854 and served with them as a troop ship, amongst other duties, until 1920. In November 1937 the chronometer was put on a list for possible sale to Heath and Co., of New Eltham, retailers of scientific instruments, at a price of £30, but it appears Heaths did not buy it. In 1940 it was issued to the mine disposal ship HMS Borde, and in 1951 went to the Naval Ordnance Inspection Department, returning via Horstmann Gears & Co. Ltd., of Bath in 1956. In 1957 it went to the Royal Naval Armament Depot in Bandeath in Scotland, and returned in 1965. The chronometer was sent to the NMM on permanent loan by the Hydrographer in January 1977.
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.
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