Pendulum mechanism

York hosts celebration of 18th century horology

Fairfax House in York is hosting a celebration of horology in the north of England with an exhibition that runs through to the end of the year.

The Keeping Time show, which starts on October 5, explores the advent of timekeeping in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the far-reaching revolutionary consequences for Georgian England of the introduction and increasingly widespread adoption of the clock.

“Keeping Time will focus particularly on the innovative clockmakers of York and Yorkshire, bringing together clocks of all shapes, sizes and types from the regional clockmaking industry to illuminate the technical skill and brilliance of Yorkshire’s greatest horological craftsmen,” the exhibition’s curator said.

Fairfax House director, Hannah Phillip told local newspaper The Press: “In creating an exhibition on time in the Eighteenth century, the ultimate name in precision timekeeping, and by extension the quest for longitude, is of course John Harrison, inventor of the Harrison Precision Pendulum Clock Number Two.
“Yorkshire-born, and a carpenter by trade his name shines through as one of the most brilliant men in horology, whose vision, genius and thirst for conquering the unsolvable brought about such vast leaps in engineering of course the quest for measuring longitude.”

 

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *