World-leading horologist Dr John C Taylor OBE FREng discusses one of his heroes: John Harrison. Dr Taylor has the world's most comprehensive collection of early English clocks and has given talks and presentations on the work of Harrison and his contemporaries around the world. John Harrison's marine chronometers were the first clocks that would allow seafarers to accurately determine their longitude. This was a huge leap for navigational technology. Dr Taylor's interest in clocks does not lie solely in their history. He is the creator of the famous Corpus Chronophage clock, which is displayed at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. His most recent creation is the Dragon Chronophage, which will be exhibited at Design Shanghai from 27 - 30 March 2015.

1. An interview with Dr John C.
Taylor OBE FREng:
Horology

2. World-leading expert in eighteenth-century English horology, Dr John C Taylor OBE
FREng, was recently interviewed by Tom Evans on his podcast The Zone Show.
Amongst other things, he spoke about John Harrison’s quest to design a clock from
which longitude could be determined.
This would allow seafarers to navigate accurately for the first time, reinforcing
Britain’s position as a global nautical power.
He also spoke about his own horological creations, the Chronophage series.

3. Many people say that the invention that has affected humanity most is the wheel.
The wheel has become the servant of humanity, but the clock has become the opposite.
Mankind is controlled by the clock.
Dr John C Taylor OBE FREng

4. “One of my heroes from the past is John Harrison,
who made the first clocks that could go to sea so
that seafarers could find their longitude.
“We’re all indebted to him, even today, for GPS.
“It’s the same thing - finding one’s position using
time.
“It’s an extension – a more accurate extension – of
what John Harrison did.

5. “One of his early inventions was an escapement which was virtually frictionless.
“The escapement in any watch or any clock has to do two things: it has to allow the
pendulum or balance wheel to control the release of the pent-up energy of the
weight, spring or battery; and to keep the oscillator (pendulum or balance wheel)
maintaining its constant swing.
“The amplitude has got to remain constant in order to keep the time accurately. The
escapement allows the time-base to release the energy in the clock in a controlled
way, at a second at a time.
“When the oscillation is taking place, the escapement has to give the pendulum an
impulse every swing to overcome the air resistance.
“John Harrison invented the grasshopper, the first escapement that didn’t require
oiling.

6. “Oil used to be the Achilles Heel of all clocks. In the development of lubrication, the
only oils available in this period were natural oils.
“Petroleum oils had not been invented.
“Most natural oils dry out – if you think of linseed oil, it’s paint. It may seem to take
a long time to dry but it doesn’t.
“Natural oils do congeal, like goose grease. If you put it in the fridge it hardens
completely.

7. “If a timepiece went through the tropics in the
hold at 40° or 50° and then through the Polar
Regions at -25° or -30°, the oil would undergo a
huge temperature change.
“This was one of the main difficulties to overcome
with any clock.
“The London clockmakers knew it was impossible,
so didn’t even try to make a clock to go to sea,
whereas John Harrison believed that nothing was
impossible if you could find a way to solve it.
“Being a carpenter, he set off and made some
wooden clocks and to reduce the friction he
invented the grasshopper escapement, which
requires no oil.

8. “I am very lucky that I managed to acquire Harrison’s own
personal regulator – a clock with a grasshopper escapement in
it.
“He realised that before he could make an accurate sea clock
he had to make an accurate land clock.
“In his day and age there was no radio or telephone, so time
was local and there tended to be a sundial to set your clock by.
“It’s very difficult to read a minute of time on a sundial so to
calibrate a sea clock he needed a land clock to use as a time-
base.

9. “So he set off to design and build two precision longcase clocks and the first thing he
wanted to do was do away with the need for oil.
“He’d already had trouble with another clock that he’d made for Brocklesbury Hall,
in which the oil on the escapement was causing changes in the friction with the
changes in the temperature. It was always stopping.
“So he designed the grasshopper escapement so that the clock would not require
oil.
“He used his new grasshopper escapement inside these two regulators that he built.

10. “At a time when the Royal Society in London was
starting to have discussions about the expansion of
materials, he determined that the expansion of three
lengths of steel was the same as two lengths of brass.
“He invented the gridiron pendulum, so the
expansion of the steel was counteracted by the
expansion of the brass, and the bob remained in the
same length in space even though the rods expanded
and contracted around it.
“To prove that the temperature compensation was
working he made two of these clocks and put them in
different rooms. He would then bank up the fire in
his drawing room so that one clock was affected by
30° or 35°, whereas in the dining room he’d open the
windows and not have a fire so that the other clock
was affected by freezing temperatures.

11. “He would then listen to the pendulums and he could determine very, very quickly
whether one clock was going faster or slower than the other because the
temperature compensation between the two wasn’t correct.
“It obviously wasn’t exactly three lengths of steel with exactly two lengths of brass,
so he would then adjust the temperature compensation.
“He also had what he called a tin whistle, which allowed him to adjust the last 15%
or 20% of the expansion and change the ratio until the rods completely balanced out
the change in length of the pendulum.
“This meant that it was unaffected by temperature changes and he could then use
the same sort of system in his sea clocks. As I mentioned, on a sundial you can only
read to something like a minute, but Harrison was trying to do things to a fraction of
a second.

12. “The way that Harrison found the time to a fraction of a second to calibrate his land
clock was by using the rotation of the globe.
“Most people think that Earth rotates once in 24 hours. That’s only in relation to the
sun, and is actually only the average day. Most things that you are taught at school
about time are wrong. There has never been a day on Earth is exactly 24 hours. 24
hours is only the average over many years.
“Earth itself tends to spin reasonably uniformly – Harrison used a star at night and
waiting for it to disappear behind his neighbour’s chimney. One rotation of the
earth actually takes 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.09 seconds.

13. “He then had a time-base from which he could calibrate his land clocks, by watching
the rotation of the earth, by watching the stars.
“He was an incredibly astute man – most people think that if you have a grandfather
clock with hours, minutes and seconds, that he could only measure time to a
second.
“But, of course, the pendulum swinging from one side to the other takes a second
and so he then calibrated in between the swing and marked it in tenths of a second.
“He could then get the time to make his clocks a time-base – he could measure the
time to a tenth of a second.”

14. TOM: “What an incredible character! So would you mind explaining the links
between John Harrison’s clocks and yours: the Chronophage.
“When I first came across you I saw a video of it – it’s not really a clock. Is it a
chronometer, is it a chirometer?”

15. “It’s a piece of modern art, I think – that
was the objective.
“I’m a great believer in the fact that
there is no point complaining about
something unless you can do something
that’s better.
“I thought, ‘what can I do which would
be completely modern and different,
and yet entertain and have a sense of
humour.’

16. “I thought it would be a great tribute to
John Harrison to turn the clock inside
out and put the grasshopper on display
so that everybody could see how a
grasshopper escapement works.
“The other reason why I wanted to do a
tribute to John Harrison was: who
invented bimetal? John Harrison.
“He invented bimetal to temperature-
compensate his sea clocks. I’ve spent
my life using bimetal, and for most of my
life I didn’t know who had invented it. It
never crossed my mind.

17. “When I went into more detail in
horology, I discovered that John Harrison
had invented bimetal. He was a prolific
inventor, even though he was a
carpenter and had no technical training.
“He invented things like the caged roller
bearing, which is used in millions of
things every day: in washing machines,
motorcars. They all have caged bearings
with balls and rollers.
“So, trying to bring it all together, I
decided that I would try to turn the
Harrison grasshopper escapement inside
out and make it the feature of the clock.

18. “Time – it certainly has a beginning,
does it have an end?
“It began with the Big Bang, which
radiated out from the centre. Time starts
from the centre, from that moment.
“So on the dial of the clock, the face of
the clock, I had ripples of time coming
out from the centre of the universe.
“If you throw a stone into a pond you
get a splash, and I thought if time
started in the Big Bang, perhaps there
was also a splash coming out – a parallel
universe splashing out, a vestigial start in
the centre of the clock.

19. TOM: “So, where is the Chronophage?”
“It’s on the outside of Corpus Christi College,
looking down Kings Parade onto Kings
College Chapel, which has been there since
1515.
“It’s been a visitor attraction in Cambridge
for all of that period, but it’s been
superseded – more visitors come to look at
the Corpus Clock than come to look at Kings
College Chapel.”

20. TOM: “What next for the Chronophage?”
“We’ve just finished a Chronophage for a private
collector in America.
“We’re also taking the Dragon Chronophage,
which has a grasshopper escapement in the guise
of a Chinese dragon, to be exhibited at Design
Shanghai on March 27-30 2015.”

21. Produced by George Murdoch, Famous Publicity
For more information about Dr John C Taylor’s life and work, see
http://www.johnctaylor.com/
For information on Tom Evans, see http://www.tomevans.co/
The Zone Show interview can be found here:
https://audioboom.com/boos/2707538-a-man-for-our-time
For media contact, please contact George Murdoch at 07834 643 977 or
george@famouspublicity.com or Tina Fotherby at 07703 409 622 or
tina@famouspublicity.com.

23. Design Shanghai
Dates: 27-30 March 2015
Venue: Shanghai Exhibition Centre
Address: 1000 Yan’an Mid Road, Jing’an District, Shanghai, 200040
Design Shanghai is China’s leading international design event. In 2014, Design Shanghai opened its doors to over 47,000 visitors, breaking new
ground and setting a precedent in China’s ever-growing design community.
Showcasing the best design brands from across the globe, Design Shanghai provides a unique and exciting platform to network and establish
long-term business relations with China’s top architects, interior designers, property developers, facilities managers, private buyers and anyone
with passion for exciting, new and inspiring designs.
2015 will see the return of China’s premier design event, featuring even more of the finest international design houses, inspiring speakers and
curated features.
The Dragon Chronophage will be at stand CB-4 and the Elliptical Collection and the Plum Blossom Chandelier and Wall Lights, also Dr Taylor
creations, will be at stand E2-79.
Website: www.designshowshanghai.com Twitter: @designshanghai
Facebook: www.facebook.com/DesignShanghai Weibo: DesignShanghai
WeChat: designshanghai

24. Organiser – Media 10
Founded ten years ago Media 10 Limited is the most decorated media and events company in the UK.
Media 10 Ltd has fast become one of the leading players in the media and events industry as a result of
running some of the most iconic and successful magazines and events in the country, including Grand Designs
magazine, Icon magazine, Grand Designs Live and the world’s oldest consumer exhibition: The Ideal Home
Show.
Other events in Media 10’s portfolio include 100% Design, 100% Optical, Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model
Live, Clerkenwell Design Week, The London Design Trail, Grand Designs Awards, Icon Awards, Destination Star
Trek and Coronation Festival at Buckingham Palace.
As a privately-owned company based in Loughton, Essex, Media 10 employs over 200 talented people to run a
growing portfolio of 17 live events, 21 websites and seven magazines.
In the ten years the company has been running, the company has seen its turnover, profits, portfolio and staff
numbers grow at a dramatic rate and it now has over one million visitors in attendance at Media 10 events and
its publications have over three million readers.
Website: www.media-ten.com