[time-nuts] Setting clocks 100 years ago

[Bob Camp]

Hi

The simple answer is "that depends". One big driver for putting up a clock tower in the middle of town was to indeed have "one standard" that the town could run on. Without that - everybody is on their own. 

The main clock was often regulated by a simple sundial sitting someplace convenient. Shadow crosses line / clock goes bong = close enough. Have a month of cloudy weather, the clock may be off by a half hour or so. Not the issue it would be today, but probably still a bother. I suspect that if your town was prosperous enough you had a noon sight setup that gave you a bit better accuracy than the sun dial. There certainly were a number of maritime situations where you did indeed need the right time. Major harbors would have needed the noon sight gear. 

Bob


On Nov 4, 2010, at 6:08 PM, J. Forster wrote:

> My impression is that before the Railways and Telegraph, each town had
> time, based on local solar time, determined by a a noon sight or something
> similar. That means that towns kept time based on their longditude.
> 
> Until the railways went long distances, Standard Time and Time Zones were
> not needed.
> 
> There was an interesting episode on the PBS show, "The History Detectives"
> a month or so ago about a clock from a Chicago jewelers that was used as
> the master time clock for a railroad.
> 
> Best,
> 
> -John
> 
> ===============
> 
>> This evening I happened to hear the nearby church's bell tolling 10 pm,
>> and
>> thought
>> that 100+ years ago this could have been the "official" time of the town,
>> which
>> maybe was used by people to set their own clocks (if any). But then I
>> wondered,
>> who told the priest what time was it? To what extent the clocks of two
>> towns
>> were expected to be close to one another? Does anybody know?
>> 
>> Antonio I8IOV
>> 
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> 
> 
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