Stopwatch / timer by Hipp, Matthias, Switzerland, 1888 (Science Museum Group 1889-38/1)

Record summary

Held and catalogued by Science Museum Group, London (object number 1889-38/1), this is a chronoscopel weight-driven clock by Hipp, Matthias, made in Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel canton, Switzerland, Neuchâtel, dated 1888. The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Instruments collection. Recorded dimensions: overall: 530 x 270 x 230 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

Atlas type guide

Timers, stopwatches, chronoscopes and time recorders

Instruments for measuring short intervals or recording when something happened form a large and practical branch of horology. Sports stopwatches and split-seconds timers, laboratory chronoscopes (such as Hipp's, which measured thousandths of a second for psychology and ballistics experiments), metronomes for music, watchmen's clocks that recorded patrol rounds, and the time recorders that clocked factory workers in and out all derive from clock and watch technology.

These objects matter historically because they show timekeeping leaving the observatory and the drawing room and entering industry, science and sport. Many were mass-produced, and their dials, scales and patents chart the rise of electrification and industrial management.

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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