An Introduction to Electric Clocks by Michel Viredaz Translation by David Read The following text is a revised version of a French • Class G: Electric mechanisms for giving time sig- article published in Chronométrophilia No. 51, which nals. is a publication of the Swiss Association for the History For our purpose we prefer to use a more detailed of Time Measurement. classification based on three kinds of criteria, as fol- This article is concerned exclusively with clocks, and lows: not electric or electronic watches, which represent a A functional classification: totally different subject. The clocks discussed here are • Independent clocks - self-contained instruments powered directly or indirectly by electricity, and our giving the time at a given place. historical description concludes with the arrival of • Master clocks - clocks with a system of electrical electronics, which we define here as the introduction of contacts to enable the transmission of time impuls- semi-conductors in an electric circuit. In other words, es to more or less distant secondary clocks. we will cover approximately the period 1840-1970. • Secondary clocks - those instruments receiving the This article is aimed at clock amateurs, who often above-mentioned impulses. know little or nothing about electric clocks. Such clocks • Synchronous clocks - which are in fact nothing but are only known well by a small circle of enthusiasts, secondary clocks for which a master clock is the despite their enormous interest, and the fact—as we generating station. will discover—that they are much more varied in their A classification by type of movement, which can principles than clocks that are purely mechanical. apply to both independent and master clocks: Finally, but modestly and only for a better under- • Clocks driven by electro-magnetic impulses to the standing of the text, we would like to make it clear that pendulum. we are looking at the subject from a Swiss point of • Mechanical clocks with weight or mainspring view, which may explain the choice of examples and rewound by electricity - through a motor or an emphasis in the text. electro-magnet, at short intervals or with power We will look in turn at the following themes: classi- reserve. fication, history, examination of the different princi- • Clocks in which a mechanical impulse is applied ples, with examples, and sources of documentation. directly to the pendulum - through gravity, spring, Classification of Electric Clocks or electro-magnet. It may appear a little off-putting, but classification • Special and anecdotal ideas of construction. is a necessary approach if we want a clear overview of Finally, a classification according to the source and such a complex subject. The first example of systemat- characteristics of the electrical supply: ic classification is for Swiss patents found in •Low voltage (1.5-60V) or mains (110-220V). Inventions-Revue, 1908-1909. It is interesting in that it •Direct current (usually low voltage) or alternating shows the spirit of the time but is, nevertheless, insuf- current (usually mains). ficient for a retrospective examination of the subject. •Mains, with or without transformer and/or rectifi- After Class A (devoted to mechanical horology), Class er, or battery, rechargeable or not. B (to cases), and Class C (to specialized machines and With such a global overview, it will now be easier in tools), there are no less than four (!) classes for electric the following pages to examine characteristic construc- horology: tions, without the risk of confusion between the many •Class D: Electro-magnetic independent clocks, varieties of electric clocks. divided between “direct action” and “indirect But before that, let’s have a look at history. action.” • Class E: Systems for the unification of time by elec- History tricity (with five subsections). The first question that comes to the mind of every- • Class F: Electric apparatus for the measurement of one is, “Who was the inventor of the electric clock?” As fractions of a second (to make a special class of usual for great inventions, the idea was everywhere in these rare but wonderful machines—like the the air around 1840, and numerous works had been chronoscope—was a real honor for Messrs Hipp undertaken by people like Wheatstone, Steinheil, and Favarger!). Hipp, Breguet, Garnier, and many others. April 2003 NAWCC BULLETIN 1 Under the initiative of British enthusiasts, the idea for a high civil has become well established in literature that servant. G.A. Alexander Bain was the “father” of electric clocks. Bain Hasler, his former started, but did not finish, an apprenticeship as a assistant, suc- clockmaker and became interested in electricity very ceeded him and early, around 1830. After a long controversy with Prof. took over the Wheatstone, who tried to appropriate Bain’s invention workshop when it for himself, Bain registered his first patent on October was privatized. 10, 1840. Bain was certainly a genius and a visionary. In 1860 Hipp Numerous applications of electricity to clockmaking went to Neuchâtel, and time are envisaged in his texts and patents, but he where he created did not succeed in establishing a real production series a small telegraph or an industry, as did Hipp, who was of German origin, and electrical appa- in Switzerland during the same period. ratus factory. This But before we discuss Hipp, let’s remind ourselves was the real begin- that research on electricity had already started in the ning of electric seventeenth century. An Italian, Prof. Rami, made the horology, which first electro-static clock in 1815. William Sturgeon, a now became estab- British citizen, invented the electro-magnet, which was lished in the prac- indispensable for electric clocks, in 1825, and Volta tical sense, after invented the battery in 1800. two decades of Matthias Hipp (1815-1893) was born in laboratory research Wurtemberg, Germany. He apprenticed as a clockmak- in Europe. The er and worked in a modern factory: he had met the son company devel- of the owner coming back from further training in oped rapidly, and Switzerland. He also went to the French-speaking part Hipp retired in of Switzerland to improve his professional education, 1889, leaving the stopping briefly in Sankt-Gallen in 1834, where it is responsibility to Figure 1. General scheme of a Hipp clock with 1/2 sec. pendulum said that he invented his famous “toggle-escapement” A. Favarger and of the second half of the 19th cen- M. de Peyer. From —in fact a switching contact and not an escapement in tury. One can see the contact in the the usual sense of the word—during a night of insom- this time until middle of the pendulum and the nia. He arrived in Saint-Aubin, near Neuchâtel, in 1908 pieces are electro-magnet below it. These 1835, where he improved his skills for a few years signed “Peyer & clocks exist with or without the before returning to Germany. In 1841, at the age of 28, Favarger, succes- master clock function. he created his own factory in Reutlingen, Germany. It sors of M. Hipp,” was in Reutlingen that he finalized his first Hipp-tog- after which Peyer gle clock. He presented it in Berlin at an exhibition in retired and the company became Favarger & Cie (& 1843, with the brief mention, “A clock which has its Co.), then Favarger & Cie S.A. (Ltd.) in 1923, and final- movement below the pendulum.” See Figure 1. He also ly Favag S.A. in 1927. The Favag clock business, which invented a small motor and built the chronoscope and produced quartz clocks in the latter years, was liqui- the registering chronograph, two instruments used for dated in the early 1990s, the servicing of the last exist- the measurement of very short time periods (the class ing clocks was given to a former competitor. F mentioned above). Another important person in the Swiss landscape of The most remarkable fact connected with the Hipp- electric horology is David Perret, a pioneer of electric toggle clock, apart from its extraordinary ingenuity, is winding. He was the son of an industrialist in the that it was successful enough to have been made and watch business, was a high school mechanical engineer sold for over a hundred years without any change in its from the Swiss Polytechnic Institute of Zurich, and an operating principle. What other invention can claim officer in the army, and a politician. He registered the same longevity? many patents in his name. After having spent some In 1852, Hipp was named by the federal government years concentrating on the mechanization of watch to head the National Telegraph Workshop and to be the production, he became interested in electric clocks and technical manager of the Telegraph Administration, a developed an original system of double contact switch- great honor for a foreigner. In this position he contin- ing, to reduce sparking, for rewinding a weak main- ued his inventions for eight years, but not without spring once a minute. He died on September 18, 1908, some animosity against him, since he was both well and, sadly, his company was liquidated some years known and his office was profitable, two major crimes later. 2 NAWCC BULLETIN April 2003 Listed below are important dates for electric clocks A critical characteristic to conclude this brief review of their history. of these clocks is the con- 1856 - the first electrically wound clock by Louis F. tact that switches on the Breguet. current needed to maintain 1862-64 - the first electric networks for clocks in the pendulum in oscilla- Geneva and Neuchâtel. tion. In most clocks of this 1885 - the invention of the Ferraris motor (much type, the contact closes and used in electrically wound clocks, for example, an impulse is given at Zenith).