A General History of Horology

A General History of Horology describes instruments used for the finding and measurement of time from Antiquity to the 21st century. In geographical scope it ranges from East Asia to the Americas. The instruments described are set in their technical and social contexts, and there is also discussion of the literature, the historiography and the collecting of the subject. The book features the use of case studies to represent larger topics that cannot be completely covered in a single book. The international body of authors have endeavoured to offer a fully world-wide survey accessible to students, historians, collectors, and the general reader, based on a firm understanding of the technical basis of the subject. At the same time as the work offers a synthesis of current knowledge of the subject, it also incorporates the results of some fundamental, new and original research.

1 - Time measurement in Antiquity
2 - India and the Far East: dials, water-clocks, fire-clocks
3 - Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages
4 - Public clocks: fourteenth to eighteenth centuries
5 - The domestic clock in Europe
6 - Watches in Europe 1600 - 1800
7 - The Structures of horological manufacture and trade: sixteenth to eighteenth centuries
8 - The development of the sundial fourteenth to twentieth centuries
9 - Clocks as astronomical models
10 - Musical and automaton clocks and watches: sound and motion in time-telling devices
11 - The quest for precision in astronomy and navigation
12 - Decimal Time
13 - Industrial manufacture: clock and watch-making in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
14 - Precision attained: chronometers and regulators in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
15 - Responding to customer demand: the decoration of clocks and watches from the Renaissance to recent times
16 - Eighteenth-century clock exports from Britain to the East Indies
17 - Public clocks in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
18 - Wrist-watches from their origins to the twenty-first century
19 - Electricity, horology, and networked time
20 - Women in horology
21 - The keeping of clocks and watches: maintenance, repair and restoration
22 - Accessories in horology
23 - Applications of clockwork
24 - Horology verbalised; horology visualised
25 - The Literature of horology
26 - Collecting and writing the history of horology
27 - Glossary
28 - Bibliography

Anthony Turner works primarily on the history of scientific instruments, clocks, watches and related items in their technical and social contexts during the Early Modern period. As consultant he collaborates with leading museums and auction houses and has been responsible for the organisation of several international exhibitions. James Nye studied Theology at Oxford, and later completed a PhD in Financial History at Kings College London. His thesis included case studies of early electric clock companies, reflecting a lifelong involvement in horology, especially in the electrical arena. From practical bench work on clocks as a teenager, his career progressed to researching and writing on the history of time measurement. A continuing theme in his ongoing work is the emergence of distributed accurate timekeeping from the late nineteenth century onwards. James is chair of the Antiquarian Horology Society, and founder and principal sponsor of London's Clockworks Museum. Jonathan Betts, a professional horologist all his life, was Senior Conservator and then Senior Curator of Horology at Royal Museums Greenwich for 35 years, and remains a Curator Emeritus. He is also Horological Adviser to a number of heritage bodies including the National Trust. He is Vice Chair and Honorary Librarian of the Antiquarian Horological Society.