Speaker
Description
The need for more accurate astronomical data for geodesy, the timing of celestial events, land surveys, determining longitude for navigation, and to regulate other timepieces led to the development of very accurate clocks in the 1860s and 1870s.
This presentation will focus on the astronomical clocks that the London horological company Charles Frodsham, which specialised in high-precision timepieces, made for several observatories around the world during that period. The company's regulators were considered to be among the finest and most precise scientific instruments available on the market.
In particular, the talk will analyse the regulators supplied to the observatories in Palermo, Padua and Naples. It will then discuss their construction and technicalities, and consider what they reveal about the use of precise timekeeping in mid-19th-century observatories.