Today, we get accurate time from atomic clock ensembles in observatories round the world, compared and distributed by GPS satellites and over the internet, and displayed on almost any public or personal screen.
There was a scientific literature on the behaviour of pendulums and clocks; and a widespread craft-based industry making timepieces; but it could not be said that horology was a branch of engineering.
Suppliers such as the Synchronome Company or Gents of Leicester could by 1925 have supplied perfectly satisfactory and well-proven systems to run the bell and slave clocks throughout the building.
The fact that the University chose to commission a unique and original design is a tribute perhaps to its pride in the new building and to its distinguished Professor, who was able to put into practice the principles that he had developed.
In its new home in Queen’s Building the original studs are re-mounted on to a large steel plate, firmly screwed to the reinforced concrete wall.
It is suspended from a bracket attached to a massive iron casting bolted through to the wall, which also carries the “escapement” mechanism to the right under the face.
Part of the mechanism includes a 60-tooth ratchet wheel advanced on every pendulum swing by a pawl driven by the electromagnet.
The force comes from a torque generated by a spiral hair-spring, one end being attached to the pivot of a lever that forms part of the escapement linkage, the other to a disk that can be rotated in small steps by a solenoid-operated “stepper motor”.