|
Given that the Newgate Street Clock celebrates the 375th anniversary of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, it is particularly fitting that two of its most revered late 17th century members began their careers within a few hundred metres of the Newgate Tower. They were Daniel Quare (c. 1647-1724) and Joseph Windmills (fl.1671-1724). Both enjoyed Royal patronage, both became Masters of the Clockmakers' Company (Windmills in 1702 and Quare in 1708) and both signed their early work "St. Martin's le Grand". It is also fitting that a watch made by Windmills should have become the inspiration for the Newgate Street Clock. This is partly because the Hearth Tax Return of 1672 suggests that his workshop was no more than about 120 metres east of the Newgate clock's site and partly because records show that of all the great makers of his time, Windmills was the most devoted to his Company. Some two hundred years after Windmills had left his first workshop, another building of horological consequence rose on the same site. It was the General Post Office, built to the designs of the architect James Williams and opened in 1874. The fourth floor was devoted to telegraph instruments, including a "chronopher". This was the device, (in the words of "Old and New London", published in 1878) "from which all England is supplied with the correct time. Sixteen of the most important cities in the kingdom are in direct communication with this instrument, which is itself in direct communication with the Observatory at Greenwich. At two minutes before ten every morning all other work is suspended, in order that there may be no interference with what is called the "time current," which, precisely at the striking of the clock, flashes the intelligence to the sixteen stations with which it is in communication. And not merely at these large towns, but at every post-office throughout the kingdom, the clerks at two minutes before ten are on the look-out for the signal which is to be passed along the line, and the clocks are adjusted accordingly. Messrs. Dent, Benson, and all the principal watchmakers in London receive the time every hour from this chronopher. Time-guns at Newcastle and at Shields are also fired at one p.m. by batteries connected with the chronopher at the office, the clock attached to which is regulated for accuracy to the twentieth part of a second" The Newgate Street Clock is not corrected by telegraph, but by satellite radio signal. And, as it happens, it was on the roof of the same General Post Office building, 120 metres away, that Marconi gave his first official wireless transmission demonstration to Sir William Preece of the G.P.O., on 27th July 1897. |
||