Grandfather clocks history

Posted under Clocks by admin on Wednesday 23 September 2009 at 9:49 pm

History of the Grandfather clock


Grandfather clocks were first discovered by Galileo in 1582. He found that you could use a pendulum to keep time. The first working grandfather clock was invented by Christian Huygens in 1656.
There were initial problems with the early models with their inaccuracy to keep proper time. They were found to lose 10 minutes in a single day. This massive problem was solved by an English man named William Clement in 1670. He worked out that by using a longer pendelum this would make the clock keep more accurate time. Hence this led to to cases of the clocks becomming a lot longer. Initially the clocks were called long case clocks which eventually changed to the name we know as grandfather clocks.
A further change was to be implemented in 1721. George Graham noticed that temperature changes affected the pendulum. A rise or fall in temperature made the clock gain or lose time. Graham solved the problem and compensated the changes into the grandfather clocks .To this date grandfather clocks are accurate to 1 second per day.
Grandfather Clocks are also known as longcase clocks, tall-case clock or floor clock. They are around 2 meters tall
Elegant and graceful is how one professor described the famous Grandfather clock back in 1831. These clocks have been the main focus in many a household dating back over 100 years. Nowadays antique Grandfather clocks are one of the most sought after buys within the antique world.