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Thomas Tompion
Thomas Tompion, FRS (1639–1713) was an English clockmaker, watchmaker and mechanician who is still regarded to this day as the "Father of English Clockmaking". Tompion's work includes some of the most historic and important clocks and watches in the world, and can command very high prices whenever outstanding examples appear at auction. A plaque commemorates the house he shared on Fleet Street in London with his equally famous pupil and successor George Graham. Biography Thomas Tompion was born around 1639 and was baptized on 25 July 1639 in Northill, Bedfordshire, England. The family cottage in Ickwell, his home hamlet in the parish of Northill, bears a plaque erected in his honor by the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers in 1952. He was the eldest son of a blacksmith, also named Thomas Tompion, and probably worked as a blacksmith until 1664 when he became an apprentice of a London clockmaker. Very little of his earlier years is known. The first reference to Tompion in Lond ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Smith (engraver Born 1652)
John Smith (c. 1652 – c. 1742) was an English mezzotint engraver and print seller. Closely associated with the portrait painter Godfrey Kneller, Smith was one of leading exponents of the mezzotint medium during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and was regarded among first English-born artists to receive international recognition, along the younger painter William Hogarth. Life Smith was born at Daventry, Northamptonshire, about 1652. He was articled to a painter named Tillet in London, and studied mezzotint engraving under Isaac Beckett and Jan van der Vaart. Smith became the favourite engraver of Sir Godfrey Kneller, whose paintings he extensively reproduced, and in whose house he is said to have lived for some time. At the end of his career, Smith retired to Northamptonshire, where he died on 17 January 1742 at age 90. He was buried in the churchyard of St Peter's, Northampton church, where there was a tablet to his memory and that of his wife Sarah, who died in 17 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daniel Quare
Daniel Quare (1648 or 1649 – 21 March 1724) was an English clockmaker and instrument maker who invented a repeating watch movement in 1680 and a portable barometer in 1695. Early life Daniel Quare's origins are obscure. He was possibly a native of Somerset, and is believed to have been born in 1648 or 1649. Nothing is known of his parentage, although he is presumed to have come from a strict Quaker family. No record has been traced of his apprenticeship. Career On 3 April 1671 he was admitted a brother of the Clockmakers' Company. One of the early members of the Friends' (Quakers') meeting at Devonshire House, he married there, on 18 April 1676, Mary, daughter of Jeremiah Stevens, maltster, of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. In the register-book he is described as "clockmaker, of Martins-le-Grand in the liberty of Westminster". Soon afterwards, Quare moved to the parish of St Anne and St Agnes within Aldersgate, where in 1678, for refusing to pay a rate for the maintenance o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Watchmaker
A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since a majority of watches are now factory-made, most modern watchmakers only repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their parts, by hand. Modern watchmakers, when required to repair older watches, for which replacement parts may not be available, must have fabrication skills, and can typically manufacture replacements for many of the parts found in a watch. The term clockmaker refers to an equivalent occupation specializing in clocks. Most practising professional watchmakers service current or recent production watches. They seldom fabricate replacement parts. Instead they obtain and fit factory spare parts applicable to the watch brand being serviced. The majority of modern watchmakers, particularly in Switzerland and other countries in Europe, work directly for the watchmaking industry and may have completed a formal watchmaking degree at a technical school. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fusee (horology)
Used in antique spring-powered mechanical watches and clocks, a fusee (from the French ''fusée'', wire wound around a spindle) is a cone-shaped pulley with a helical groove around it, wound with a cord or chain which is attached to the mainspring barrel. Fusees were used from the 15th century to the early 20th century to improve timekeeping by equalizing the uneven pull of the mainspring as it ran down. Gawaine Baillie stated of the fusee, "Perhaps no problem in mechanics has ever been solved so simply and so perfectly." History The origin of the fusee is not known. Many sources erroneously credit clockmaker Jacob Zech of Prague with inventing it around 1525. The earliest definitely dated fusee clock was made by Zech in 1525, but the fusee actually appeared earlier, with the first spring driven clocks in the 15th century., p.127-128, p.121 The idea probably did not originate with clockmakers, since the earliest known example is in a crossbow windlass shown in a 1405 mili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christiaan Huygens
Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, ( , , ; also spelled Huyghens; la, Hugenius; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor, who is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of all time and a major figure in the Scientific Revolution. In physics, Huygens made groundbreaking contributions in optics and mechanics, while as an astronomer he is chiefly known for his studies of the rings of Saturn and the discovery of its moon Titan. As an engineer and inventor, he improved the design of telescopes and invented the pendulum clock, a breakthrough in timekeeping and the most accurate timekeeper for almost 300 years. An exceptionally talented mathematician and physicist, Huygens was the first to idealize a physical problem by a set of mathematical parameters, and the first to fully mathematize a mechanistic explanation of an unobservable physical phenomenon.Dijksterhuis, F.J. (2008) Stevin, Huygens and the Dutch republ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Derham
William Derham FRS (26 November 16575 April 1735)Smolenaars, Marja.Derham, William (1657–1735), ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004. Accessed 26 May 2007. was an English clergyman, natural theologian, natural philosopher and scientist. He produced the earliest reasonably accurate measurement of the speed of sound. Life William Derham was the son of Thomas Derham. He was born at Stoulton, in Worcestershire, England. He was educated at Blockley, Gloucestershire, and at Trinity College, Oxford, from 1675 to 1679. He was ordained on 29 May 1681. In 1682, he became vicar of Wargrave, Berkshire, and from 1689 to 1735 he was Rector at Upminster, Essex. While at Upminster, in 1716 he became a Canon of Windsor and the vestry minutes show that thereafter he divided his time between those two places. The parish registers of Upminster record his burial at St. Laurence's in 1735. However, the precise site of his grave is unknown and, in accordance ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Balance Spring
A balance spring, or hairspring, is a spring attached to the balance wheel in mechanical timepieces. It causes the balance wheel to oscillate with a resonant frequency when the timepiece is running, which controls the speed at which the wheels of the timepiece turn, thus the rate of movement of the hands. A regulator lever is often fitted, which can be used to alter the free length of the spring and thereby adjust the rate of the timepiece. The balance spring is a fine spiral or helical torsion spring used in mechanical watches, alarm clocks, kitchen timers, marine chronometers, and other timekeeping mechanisms to control the rate of oscillation of the balance wheel. The balance spring is an essential adjunct to the balance wheel, causing it to oscillate back and forth. The balance spring and balance wheel together form a harmonic oscillator, which oscillates with a precise period or "beat" resisting external disturbances, and is responsible for timekeeping accuracy. The addi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Watch
A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached by a watch strap or other type of bracelet, including metal bands, leather straps or any other kind of bracelet. A pocket watch is designed for a person to carry in a pocket, often attached to a chain. Watches were developed in the 17th century from spring-powered clocks, which appeared as early as the 14th century. During most of its history the watch was a mechanical device, driven by clockwork, powered by winding a mainspring, and keeping time with an oscillating balance wheel. These are called ''mechanical watches''. In the 1960s the electronic ''quartz watch'' was invented, which was powered by a battery and kept time with a vibrating quartz crystal. By the 1980s the quartz watch had taken over most of the market from the mechani ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hampton Court Palace (3037893374)
Hampton Court Palace is a Grade I listed royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, southwest and upstream of central London on the River Thames. The building of the palace began in 1514 for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the chief minister of Henry VIII. In 1529, as Wolsey fell from favour, the cardinal gave the palace to the king to check his disgrace. The palace went on to become one of Henry's most favoured residences; soon after acquiring the property, he arranged for it to be enlarged so that it might more easily accommodate his sizeable retinue of courtiers. Along with St James' Palace, it is one of only two surviving palaces out of the many the king owned. The palace is currently in the possession of King Charles III and the Crown. In the following century, King William III's massive rebuilding and expansion work, which was intended to rival the Palace of Versailles, destroyed much of the Tudor palace.Dynes, p. 90. His work ceased in 1694, leaving the pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
T Tompion And G Graham
T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is derived from the Semitic Taw 𐤕 of the Phoenician and Paleo-Hebrew script (Aramaic and Hebrew Taw ת/𐡕/, Syriac Taw ܬ, and Arabic ت Tāʼ) via the Greek letter τ (tau). In English, it is most commonly used to represent the voiceless alveolar plosive, a sound it also denotes in the International Phonetic Alphabet. It is the most commonly used consonant and the second most commonly used letter in English-language texts. History '' Taw'' was the last letter of the Western Semitic and Hebrew alphabets. The sound value of Semitic ''Taw'', Greek alphabet Tαυ (''Tau''), Old Italic and Latin T has remained fairly constant, representing in each of these; and it has also kept its original basic shape in most of these alphabets. Use in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Towneley
Richard Towneley (10 October 1629 – 22 January 1707) was an English mathematician, natural philosopher and astronomer, resident at Towneley Hall, near Burnley in Lancashire. His uncle was the antiquarian and mathematician Christopher Towneley (1604–1674). Towneley's Catholicism isolated him from some of the key scientific networks of the period, such as the Royal Society, but his individual collaborations were significant and impactful. One of these was with Robert Boyle, helping formulate Boyle's Law, or as Boyle named it, "Mr. Towneley's hypothesis". He also introduced John Flamsteed to the Micrometer (device), micrometer and invented the deadbeat escapement, which became the standard escapement used in precision pendulum clocks and is the main escapement used in pendulum clocks today. Life Richard Towneley was born at Nocton Hall, in Lincolnshire, on 10 October 1629, eldest son of Charles Towneley (1600–1644) and Mary Trappes (1599–1690). The Towneleys were promine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deadbeat Escapement
In horology, the anchor escapement is a type of escapement used in pendulum clocks. The escapement is a mechanism in a mechanical clock that maintains the swing of the pendulum by giving it a small push each swing, and allows the clock's wheels to advance a fixed amount with each swing, moving the clock's hands forward. The anchor escapement was so named because one of its principal parts is shaped vaguely like a ship's anchor. The anchor escapement was probably invented by British scientist Robert Hooke around 1657, although some references credit clockmaker William Clement, who popularized the anchor in his invention of the longcase or grandfather clock around 1680. When Clement's clock appeared Hooke claimed the invention of the escapement, saying that he had shown a clock with the same escapement to the Royal Society soon after the great fire of 1666. The oldest known anchor clock is Wadham College Clock, a tower clock built at Wadham College, Oxford, in 1670, probably by c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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