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An interview with Dr John C. Taylor OBE
FREng:Horology
World-leading expert in eighteenth-century English horology, Dr John C Taylor OBE FREng, was recently interviewed by Tom Evans on his podcast The Zone Show.
Amongst other things, he spoke about John Harrison’s quest to design a clock from which longitude could be determined.
This would allow seafarers to navigate accurately for the first time, reinforcing Britain’s position as a global nautical power.
He also spoke about his own horological creations, the Chronophage series.
Many people say that the invention that has affected humanity most is the wheel.
The wheel has become the servant of humanity, but the clock has become the opposite.
Mankind is controlled by the clock.
Dr John C Taylor OBE FREng
“One of my heroes from the past is John Harrison, who made the first clocks that could go to sea so that seafarers could find their longitude.
“We’re all indebted to him, even today, for GPS.
“It’s the same thing - finding one’s position using time.
“It’s an extension – a more accurate extension – of what John Harrison did.
“One of his early inventions was an escapement which was virtually frictionless.
“The escapement in any watch or any clock has to do two things: it has to allow the pendulum or balance wheel to control the release of the pent-up energy of the weight, spring or battery; and to keep the oscillator (pendulum or balance wheel) maintaining its constant swing.
“The amplitude has got to remain constant in order to keep the time accurately. The escapement allows the time-base to release the energy in the clock in a controlled way, at a second at a time.
“When the oscillation is taking place, the escapement has to give the pendulum an impulse every swing to overcome the air resistance.
“John Harrison invented the grasshopper, the first escapement that didn’t require oiling.
“Oil used to be the Achilles Heel of all clocks. In the development of lubrication, the only oils available in this period were natural oils.
“Petroleum oils had not been invented.
“Most natural oils dry out – if you think of linseed oil, it’s paint. It may seem to take a long time to dry but it doesn’t.
“Natural oils do congeal, like goose grease. If you put it in the fridge it hardens completely.
“If a timepiece went through the tropics in the hold at 40° or 50° and then through the Polar Regions at -25° or -30°, the oil would undergo a huge temperature change.
“This was one of the main difficulties to overcome with any clock.
“The London clockmakers knew it was impossible, so didn’t even try to make a clock to go to sea, whereas John Harrison believed that nothing was impossible if you could find a way to solve it.
“Being a carpenter, he set off and made some wooden clocks and to reduce the friction he invented the grasshopper escapement, which requires no oil.
“I am very lucky that I managed to acquire Harrison’s own personal regulator – a clock with a grasshopper escapement in it.
“He realised that before he could make an accurate sea clock he had to make an accurate land clock.
“In his day and age there was no radio or telephone, so time was local and there tended to be a sundial to set your clock by.
“It’s very difficult to read a minute of time on a sundial so to calibrate a sea clock he needed a land clock to use as a time-base.
“So he set off to design and build two precision longcase clocks and the first thing he wanted to do was do away with the need for oil.
“He’d already had trouble with another clock that he’d made for Brocklesbury Hall, in which the oil on the escapement was causing changes in the friction with the changes in the temperature. It was always stopping.
“So he designed the grasshopper escapement so that the clock would not require oil.
“He used his new grasshopper escapement inside these two regulators that he built.
“At a time when the Royal Society in London was starting to have discussions about the expansion of materials, he determined that the expansion of three lengths of steel was the same as two lengths of brass.
“He invented the gridiron pendulum, so the expansion of the steel was counteracted by the expansion of the brass, and the bob remained in the same length in space even though the rods expanded and contracted around it.
“To prove that the temperature compensation was working he made two of these clocks and put them in different rooms. He would then bank up the fire in his drawing room so that one clock was affected by 30° or 35°, whereas in the dining room he’d open the windows and not have a fire so that the other clock was affected by freezing temperatures.
“He would then listen to the pendulums and he could determine very, very quickly whether one clock was going faster or slower than the other because the temperature compensation between the two wasn’t correct.
“It obviously wasn’t exactly three lengths of steel with exactly two lengths of brass, so he would then adjust the temperature compensation.
“He also had what he called a tin whistle, which allowed him to adjust the last 15% or 20% of the expansion and change the ratio until the rods completely balanced out the change in length of the pendulum.
“This meant that it was unaffected by temperature changes and he could then use the same sort of system in his sea clocks. As I mentioned, on a sundial you can only read to something like a minute, but Harrison was trying to do things to a fraction of a second.
“The way that Harrison found the time to a fraction of a second to calibrate his land clock was by using the rotation of the globe.
“Most people think that Earth rotates once in 24 hours. That’s only in relation to the sun, and is actually only the average day. Most things that you are taught at school about time are wrong. There has never been a day on Earth is exactly 24 hours. 24 hours is only the average over many years.
“Earth itself tends to spin reasonably uniformly – Harrison used a star at night and waiting for it to disappear behind his neighbour’s chimney. One rotation of the earth actually takes 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.09 seconds.
“He then had a time-base from which he could calibrate his land clocks, by watching the rotation of the earth, by watching the stars.
“He was an incredibly astute man – most people think that if you have a grandfather clock with hours, minutes and seconds, that he could only measure time to a second.
“But, of course, the pendulum swinging from one side to the other takes a second and so he then calibrated in between the swing and marked it in tenths of a second.
“He could then get the time to make his clocks a time-base – he could measure the time to a tenth of a second.”
TOM: “What an incredible character! So would you mind explaining the links between John Harrison’s clocks and yours: the Chronophage.
“When I first came across you I saw a video of it – it’s not really a clock. Is it a chronometer, is it a chirometer?”
“It’s a piece of modern art, I think – that was the objective.
“I’m a great believer in the fact that there is no point complaining about something unless you can do something that’s better.
“I thought, ‘what can I do which would be completely modern and different, and yet entertain and have a sense of humour.’
“I thought it would be a great tribute to John Harrison to turn the clock inside out and put the grasshopper on display so that everybody could see how a grasshopper escapement works.“The other reason why I wanted to do a tribute to John Harrison was: who invented bimetal? John Harrison. “He invented bimetal to temperature-compensate his sea clocks. I’ve spent my life using bimetal, and for most of my life I didn’t know who had invented it. It never crossed my mind.
“When I went into more detail in horology, I discovered that John Harrison had invented bimetal. He was a prolific inventor, even though he was a carpenter and had no technical training.
“He invented things like the caged roller bearing, which is used in millions of things every day: in washing machines, motorcars. They all have caged bearings with balls and rollers.
“So, trying to bring it all together, I decided that I would try to turn the Harrison grasshopper escapement inside out and make it the feature of the clock.
“Time – it certainly has a beginning, does it have an end? “It began with the Big Bang, which radiated out from the centre. Time starts from the centre, from that moment. “So on the dial of the clock, the face of the clock, I had ripples of time coming out from the centre of the universe. “If you throw a stone into a pond you get a splash, and I thought if time started in the Big Bang, perhaps there was also a splash coming out – a parallel universe splashing out, a vestigial start in the centre of the clock.
TOM: “So, where is the Chronophage?”“It’s on the outside of Corpus Christi College, looking down Kings Parade onto Kings College Chapel, which has been there since 1515.
“It’s been a visitor attraction in Cambridge for all of that period, but it’s been superseded – more visitors come to look at the Corpus Clock than come to look at Kings College Chapel.”
TOM: “What next for the Chronophage?”“We’ve just finished a Chronophage for a private collector in America.
“We’re also taking the Dragon Chronophage, which has a grasshopper escapement in the guise of a Chinese dragon, to be exhibited at Design Shanghai on March 27-30 2015.”
Produced by George Murdoch, Famous Publicity
For more information about Dr John C Taylor’s life and work, see http://www.johnctaylor.com/
For information on Tom Evans, see http://www.tomevans.co/
The Zone Show interview can be found here: https://audioboom.com/boos/2707538-a-man-for-our-time
For media contact, please contact George Murdoch at 07834 643 977 or [email protected] or Tina Fotherby at 07703 409 622 or [email protected].
Design Shanghai
Dates: 27-30 March 2015Venue: Shanghai Exhibition CentreAddress: 1000 Yan’an Mid Road, Jing’an District, Shanghai, 200040
Design Shanghai is China’s leading international design event. In 2014, Design Shanghai opened its doors to over 47,000 visitors, breaking new ground and setting a precedent in China’s ever-growing design community.
Showcasing the best design brands from across the globe, Design Shanghai provides a unique and exciting platform to network and establish long-term business relations with China’s top architects, interior designers, property developers, facilities managers, private buyers and anyone with passion for exciting, new and inspiring designs.
2015 will see the return of China’s premier design event, featuring even more of the finest international design houses, inspiring speakers and curated features.
The Dragon Chronophage will be at stand CB-4 and the Elliptical Collection and the Plum Blossom Chandelier and Wall Lights, also Dr Taylor creations, will be at stand E2-79.
Website: www.designshowshanghai.com Twitter: @designshanghai Facebook: www.facebook.com/DesignShanghai Weibo: DesignShanghaiWeChat: designshanghai
Organiser – Media 10
Founded ten years ago Media 10 Limited is the most decorated media and events company in the UK.
Media 10 Ltd has fast become one of the leading players in the media and events industry as a result of running some of the most iconic and successful magazines and events in the country, including Grand Designs magazine, Icon magazine, Grand Designs Live and the world’s oldest consumer exhibition: The Ideal Home Show.
Other events in Media 10’s portfolio include 100% Design, 100% Optical, Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model Live, Clerkenwell Design Week, The London Design Trail, Grand Designs Awards, Icon Awards, Destination Star Trek and Coronation Festival at Buckingham Palace.
As a privately-owned company based in Loughton, Essex, Media 10 employs over 200 talented people to run a growing portfolio of 17 live events, 21 websites and seven magazines.
In the ten years the company has been running, the company has seen its turnover, profits, portfolio and staff numbers grow at a dramatic rate and it now has over one million visitors in attendance at Media 10 events and its publications have over three million readers.Website: www.media-ten.com
