Clock Tower - History

History

Although clock towers are today mostly admired for their aesthetics, they once served an important purpose. Before the middle of the twentieth century, most people did not have watches, and prior to the 18th century even home clocks were rare. The first clocks didn't have faces, but were solely striking clocks, which sounded bells to call the surrounding community to work or to prayer. They were therefore placed in towers so the bells would be audible for a long distance. Clock towers were placed near the centres of towns and were often the tallest structures there. As clock towers became more common, the designers realized that a dial on the outside of the tower would allow the townspeople to read the time whenever they wanted.

The use of clock towers dates back to the antiquity. The earliest clock tower was the Tower of the Winds in Athens which featured eight sundials. In its interior, there was also a water clock (or clepsydra), driven by water coming down from the Acropolis. In Song China, an astronomical clock tower was designed by Su Song and erected at Kaifeng in 1088, featuring a liquid escapement mechanism. In England, a clock was put up in a clock tower, the medieval precursor to Big Ben, at Westminster, in 1288; and in 1292 a clock was put up in Canterbury Cathedral. The oldest surviving clock tower in Europe is the Salisbury cathedral clock, completed in 1306; and another clock put up at St. Albans, in 1326, 'showed various astronomical phenomena'.

JB Joyce & Co claims to be the world's oldest tower clock maker (still in operation). The company began life in 1690 and still manufactures clocks not far from its original premises in Whitchurch, Shropshire. Today it is a part of the Smith of Derby Group started in 1856, who hold the Guinness world record for creating the world's largest pendulum-regulated clock, the Harmony Clock Tower in Ganzhou. The company has manufactured tower clocks for St Paul's Cathedral in London and the Shanghai Customs building in China.

Line (mains) synchronous tower clocks were introduced in the United States in the 1920s by Telechron, now Electric Time Company of Medfield, Massachusetts. Electric Time Company is now the largest tower clock manufacturer in the world.