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Volume 30, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 0032-1400
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Abstract

The establishment of regular time-signals and their distribution throughout Britain by means of galvanic telegraphy was largely the outcome of collaboration between G. B. Airy and C. V. Walker, with some assistance from the brothers E. and L. Clark. The early history of this development, and the role which platinum occupied in its successful operation, is traced largely from records preserved in the archives of the Royal Greenwich Observatory at Herstmonceux Castle.

© Johnson Matthey
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1986-01-01
2024-07-18
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References

  1. Howse D. Greenwich Time and the Discovery of the Longitude”, Oxford, 1980, pp. 81–115 [Google Scholar]
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  7. RGO 6/610, sect. 3: letter Airy to Walker, 12 June 1849
  8. RGO 6/721, sect. 12: letter Airy to Dent, 20 November 1848
  9. Ibid.: letter Dent to Airy, 21 November 1848
  10. RGO 17/1: “Report of the Astronomer Royal to the Board of Visitors”, read 2 June 1849, pp. 15–16
  11. RGO 6/610, sect. 3: report Glaisher to Airy, 19 May 1849
  12. Ibid.: letters Walker to Airy, 23 May and 11 June 1849
  13. RGO 6/612, sect. 16⋆: letters Walker to Airy, 9 June 1851, and Shepherd to Airy, 21 June 1851; Great Exhibition of 1851, “Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue”, London, 1851, 1, sect. 2, pp. 419–422 [Google Scholar]
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  16. Ibid., sect. 1: letter Airy to Baring, 26 November 1851
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  21. RGO 6/635, sect. 19: letter Walker to Airy, 17 May 1854
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  27. British Patent 944; 1853 [Google Scholar]
  28. British Patent 2555; 1854 [Google Scholar]
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  30. Great Exhibition of 1851, “Reports by the Juries”, London, 1852, class x, pp. 291–292 [Google Scholar]
  31. de la Rive A., and Walker C. V. RGO 6/725, sect. 49: invoice, 29 September 1852. For a description of the clock see A Treatise on Electricity”, translated by London, 1858, 3, pp. 479–484 [Google Scholar]
  32. RGO 6/611, sect. 1: letters Walker to Airy, 30 July, 6 and 16 August 1852
  33. “Greenwich Time Signals”, The Times, 23 August 1852, 6, col. 6 [Google Scholar]
  34. RGO 6/611, sect. 2: letter E. Clark to Airy, 28 August 1852; The Times, 8 September 1852, 5, col. 4: letter E. Clark to Editor [Google Scholar]
  35. RGO 6/611, sect. 1: letter Walker to Airy, 20 September 1852; RGO 6/633, sect. 1: letter Walker to Airy, 30 May 1853; RGO 6/25: journal entry 6 October 1853
  36. RGO 6/611, sect. 1 and RGO 6/627, sect. 32: letter Walker to Airy, 22 July 1853
  37. Unpublished memoirs of Colonel Edward Matthey (1836–1918), 1918, pp. 40–41. The Johnson Matthey Group holds the only copy printed
  38. For details of this battery see “The Atlantic Telegraph. A History … of the Undertaking”, London, 1857, pp. 58–60
  39. RGO 6/726, sect. 26: invoice, 23 July 1853; order and invoice, 12 August 1853
  40. Ibid., sect. 49: invoices, 7 July and 18 Oct. 1853
  41. RGO 6/727, sect. 17: order, 19 January 1854
  42. RGO 6/726, sect. 29: orders, 21 October and 22 December 1853
  43. RGO 6/732, sect. 26: invoice, 22 May 1857
  44. Ibid., sect. 28: invoice, 4 December 1857
  45. RGO 6/628, sect. 23: letter Walker to Airy, 18 February 1858
  46. RGO 6/629, sect. 8: letter Walker to Airy, 24 July 1858; RGO 6/735, sect. 9: letter Main to Reid & Co., 27 July 1858
  47. RGO 6/629, sect. 6: letter Tyer to Airy, 20 December 1859
  48. Ibid., letter Ellis to Airy, 4 February 1860
  49. Culley, op. cit., Ref. 29, p. 21
  50. RGO 6/630, sect. 9: MS. description by Ellis of apparatus at Greenwich, April 1862, p. 3
  51. RGO 6/743, sect. 22: receipt, 19 May 1865
  52. Ellis, 1865, op. cit., Ref. 2, especially 100–101
  53. Op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 100
  54. RGO 6/732, sect. 16: letter L. Clark to Airy, 19 November 1857
  55. RGO 6/741, sect. 10: notes, 15 and 17 August 1863; probably the same design as described in “The Electric and International Telegraph Company”, Electrician, 1862, 1, (13), 147–148 [Google Scholar]
  56. RGO 6/739, sect. 25: order, 9 July 1861; RGO 6/740, sect. 24: order, 14 February 1862
  57. RGO 6/742, sect. 44: letter Ellis to Walker, 9 June 1864
  58. RGO 6/745, sect. 41: order, 27 April 1867
  59. RGO 6/754, sect. 8: final letter, Bishop to Airy, 18 July 1876
  60. RGO 17/4: “Report of the Astronomer Royal to the Board of Visitors”, read 1 June 1889, p. 19
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Platinum and the Greenwich System of Time-Signals in Britain
Platinum Metals Review 30, 29 (1986); https://doi.org/10.1595/003214086X3012937
/content/journals/10.1595/003214086X3012937
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  • Article Type: Research Article

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