Time ball connection with pioneer Victorian inventor

Work to repair the time ball mechanism from the Nelson Monument has revealed a connection with one of the Victorian era’s most important inventors.

The time ball mechanism was made by the company Maudslay, Sons & Field, founded by Henry Maudslay whose innovations were crucial to the industrial revolution. His contribution is now been recognised by the release of a new set of stamps ‘Pioneers of the Industrial Revolution’, that sees his name alongside the likes of James Watt and George Stephenson.

Henry Maudslay(1771 – 1831) is regarded as one of the foremost pioneers in mechanical engineering, as it was his invention of precision machine tools that enabled highly accurate components to be produced on a mass scale for the first time. Amongst his inventions was a screw-cutting lathe, machinery to mass produce pulley-blocks for the Royal Navy, calico-printing equipment and machinery for the Royal Mint.

Using his skills he set up his own firm, which on his death became known as Maudslay, Sons & Field.  The business flourished during the nineteenth century, and it they developed a specialism for manufacturing time ball mechanisms.

It was Maudslay’s who produced the apparatus for the first public time ball, constructed at Greenwich in 1833 (see photograph). The firm then went on to build the mechanism for Edinburgh’s time ball in 1852, followed by similar projects at South Foreland in Deal in 1853, Sydney in 1855 and the Cape of Good Hope in 1873.

The Maudslay Society was founded in 1942 by engineers who had received their early training with Maudslay Sons & Field at the end of the 1890’s.  They formed the Society to ‘perpetuate and preserve the memory and work of Henry Maudslay and his associates and successor’s.