It’s essential that the art, craft and engineering skills of British clock and watchmakers are preserved for future generations This was the resounding message from two events that took place at the Royal Academy of Engineering, London, launching the new Clocktime digital museum (12th March 2024).

This new online educational resource currently features 24 clocks and watches, all made between 1500 to 1797, yet each one of them operating and showing the time according to the viewer’s geographical location. Visitors can see at close quarters the creations from world-renowned early makers including Vallin, East, Ramsay, Fromanteel, Knibb, Quare and Harrison.

Dr John C Taylor OBE FREng, who conceived and announced the new website, explained how his passion for clocks started as a young boy, seeing his father repair clocks for others on the family’s kitchen table. Almost accidentally, over the course of several decades, the 87-year-old amassed a collection of world heritage status timekeepers.

For eight years, John and his team have taken photographs and video records of his collection, which now appear on the Clocktime website. He discusses in detail the design, mechanisms, the makers and the historical context of each timekeeper. Animations show the inner workings of some of the world’s rarest watches and clocks.

Dr Taylor said, “To take even a selection of my collection for an exhibition in the UK is eye-wateringly expensive, so I wondered how I could reach a new audience in general and inspire younger people in particular. I’ve worked with my team to produce an online resource that’s open access for anyone to use and enjoy.”

Author, historian and artisanal watchmaker, Dr Rebecca Struthers, co-founder of Struthers Watchmakers, said that the project couldn’t arrive at a more vital moment. She said, “Although it celebrates the ‘golden age’ of British horology, when the objects represented one of our great national industries, Clocktime arrives at a moment when artisanal watch and clockmaking are now both categorised as endangered skills on the Heritage Crafts’ Red List. The quality of the educational videos is unparalleled. My only criticism is that I wish they’d been around sooner.

“Whether it’s textiles, woodworking or art, funding constraints have resulted in the erosion of many haptic skills in school education. Humans evolved as makers. We’ve been creating things for hundreds of thousands of years and the evidence of how good making is for our mental health could fill another digital museum. And yet, we’re facing a future where, for the first time in our existence, making and repairing things are no longer part of our normal everyday lives.

“Overcoming this challenge won’t be easy but raising awareness that successful futures in these crafts are available is a good place to start. After all, no young person is going to be inspired to pursue a career they don’t know exists.

“The horological arts have suffered from more than just the loss of watch and clockmaking skills. They’ve suffered from a total collapse of their supporting industries, from the manufacture of springs, cases and jewels to precision specialist tooling. In its heyday the British industry was made up of a community of thousands of people in manufactories and workshops across the country, from London to Lancashire and beyond, each contributing their own set of specialist skills. Clocktime sheds light on the vast array of disciplines captured within the art of making clocks and watches, showing you don’t have to become a clockmaker to be part of this industry.

“And it’s not just makers we’re in need of, we’re also desperately short of high-end restorers. While TV shows like The Repair Shop have done incredible work in highlighting the existence of these careers, we still need to do more in finding ways to convert this interest to an uptake of the skills.”

Dr Hayaatun Sillem, CEO of the Royal Academy of Engineering, thanked Dr Taylor for originating the Clocktime digital museum initiative, describing it as a visually rich and contemporary educational resource. She said, “Engineering does not exist in isolation.

It is a creative, practical activity, underpinned by design and using computing and technological advances to solve increasingly challenging problems. It is inherently innovative and is often highly creative.

“Engineers and technicians are involved in an increasingly diverse range of businesses and activities. Its pervasiveness extends into areas such as medicine, the arts, media and entertainment, finance, fashion and clothing, sports, and the digital economy.

“But the process of engineering also brings together many different crafts and skills that we should treasure – and as we can see from Clocktime it is at the heart of clock and watchmaking. John Harrison constructed his elegant portable clocks to enable sailors to determine their longitude at sea and navigate their position – those clocks had to be accurate to within three seconds a day. In the modern equivalent, today’s engineers are developing quantum sensors with an accuracy of one second in 30 billion years!

“Our ability to determine time with ever-increasing precision underpins modern life. Global satellite navigation systems, the internet and utility infrastructures all rely on the accurate timing signals provided by atomic clocks, with transport infrastructures and logistics, safety-of-life critical systems and even global financial transactions increasingly demanding better timing accuracy.

“The artisanal makers paved the way for mass production and the rapid advances we have seen in timing and navigation. Clocktime is a valuable reminder of the importance of engineering skills, something that is close to our hearts at the Academy. It should also remind us of the importance of practical skills, particularly in a world where careers are becoming more fluid and young people need a portfolio of skills.

“As Rebecca has so eloquently expressed, the long-established conveyor belt of school, college or university is morphing as people are more likely to have multiple chapters to their careers. Upgrading our skills is becoming more important than ever.”

Notes to Editors

About Clocktime digital museum

The Clocktime website (at https://clocktime.co.uk) is an open-access digital museum created by the world-renowned inventor and clockmaker Dr John C Taylor OBE FREng.

The aim is to inspire younger people to appreciate the beauty, craft and engineering skills of early British clock and watchmakers and to provide access for everyone to view these working historical masterpieces.

About Dr John C Taylor OBE FREng

John Crawshaw Taylor has over 400 patents to his name and is best known for developing the bi-metal controls that automatically switch off cordless electric kettles once water has boiled. In 2008, he and his team created the time-eating Chronophage clock which he gifted to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he studied. He was awarded an OBE in 2011 for services to business and horology. He lives in the Isle of Man, where he went to school and returned to live in the 1970’s.

High resolution imagery and films available on request or via this Dropbox link: (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/753syui8mt6v48spfqn0e/h?rlkey=zctv9vy00g00eu131mg1z8ime&dl=0)

For further information please contact Tina Fotherby, email tina@famouspublicity.com or call +44 (0)7703 409 622. Thank you for your interest.

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