Instruments · Solar chronometer
Solar Chronometer - Pilkington-Gibbs, Gibb's Heliochronometer, c. 1910
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1910
- Historical period
- Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Solar chronometer
- Dimensions
- 30 cm (Height), 22 cm (Outside Diameter)
- Holding institution
- Museums Victoria, Melbourne
- Accession / object no.
- ST 26054
- Catalogue title (original)
- Solar Chronometer - Pilkington-Gibbs, Gibb's Heliochronometer, circa 1910 (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Museums Victoria, Melbourne (object number ST 26054), this is a solar chronometer, dated c. 1910. The Atlas places it in the Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking period (1900 – 1945) of its Instruments collection. Recorded dimensions: 30 cm (Height), 22 cm (Outside Diameter). The record is illustrated with 6 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
Summary — Museums Victoria
Helio-chronometer or universal sun dial, made by Pilkington-Gibbs in Preston, Lancashire and distributed by O. Nelson, London, England, circa 1910, Invented by George James Gibbs and patented in 1907. The Heliochronometer was designed to enable accurate calculation of the time to a fraction of a minute. Each heliochronometer was adjusted at the factory to the purchaser's latitude and longittude. The instrument was promoted as being sold to 'His Majesty the King, Royal Naval College, the Meteorological Office, and the Best Families in the United Kingdom, India, Colonies, etc.' Production ceased with the advent of World War I in 1914.
Physical description — Museums Victoria
Brass instrument rotates on circular base, marked north east south west. Two arms on disc with hours marked and rotated by small grip arm with two holes is adjusted by disc marked with months. Angle of discs is adjusted to suit latitude by quadrant that passes through base. Upper disc is rotated until sunlight through holes in upper arm falls on line on lower arm. Time is shown by arrow at side.
Provenance
Donation from Swan Hill Pioneer Settlement, Mar 1967
Historical context
Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
The wristwatch displaces the pocket watch; waterproof cases, self-winding and grand complications.
Timing instruments became electrical and specialised: industrial time recorders, sports timers and aviation instruments.
Read the period in the timelineMore instruments from this periodEarlier: Industrial Revolution
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 (chronometer) escapementFuseeBalance spring (hairspring)Detent escapement
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