Turret clock by John Moore and Sons, Clerkenwell 1875

The British Horological Institute (BHI) is the representative body of the horological industry in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

. It was founded by a group of

clockmaker A clockmaker is an artisan who makes and/or repairs clocks. Since almost all clocks are now factory-made, most modern clockmakers only repair clocks. Modern clockmakers may be employed by jewellers, antique shops, and places devoted strictly to ...

s in 1858, and has its current premises at

Upton Hall Upton Hall is the headquarters of the British Horological Institute (BHI) in Upton, Newark and Sherwood, Nottinghamshire, England. It has been the headquarters since 1972. It also houses the Museum of Timekeeping consisting of a substantial col ...

in Nottinghamshire, which includes a museum of clock history.

History

The BHI was founded in 1858 by a small group of

s, one of whom was

Edward Daniel Johnson Edward Daniel Johnson (30 September 1815 – 8 March 1889) was a respected London watch and marine chronometer maker. He was a founder member and vice President of the British Horological Institute, which was formed in June 1858. During his early ...

. Their aim was to unify the British horological industry and trades in the face of large numbers of imports of clocks and watches from abroad. The institute was an immediate success and within a year it had founded its own museum and library; it also began to offer evening classes in clock- and watch-making. The journal of the institute is the ''Horological Journal'', which has been published monthly since September 1858. It is claimed to be the oldest continuously published technical journal in the world.

Upton Hall

The current premises of the BHI are at

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The trad ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. Its primary role is that of education, providing a standardised set of examinations for training horologists. It also maintains a list of members whom it considers sufficiently qualified to repair

clock A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and ...

s and

watches A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached b ...

, and who adhere to a strict code of practice. Upton Hall is also home to the charitable Museum of Timekeeping at the British Horological Institute, which includes the original BHI Museum and Library.

Membership

The institute offers a number of different kinds of membership. These include: ;Associate Membership :Any individual with an interest in horology may subscribe as a member. ;Accredited: Member of the BHI (MBHI) BHI members can gain accredited Member-level status by passing the BHI examinations at Level 4. Accredited members at this level may use the postnominals MBHI. Accredited: Fellow of the BHI (FBHI) The next level of BHI accreditation is Fellowship. This can be gained by passing the BHI examinations at Level 5 or by making a successful application to the BHI based upon outstanding career achievements. Accredited members at this level may use the postnominals FBHI. Corporate membership and business partnership are also available.

Museum of Timekeeping

The Museum of Timekeeping is also housed at the home of the British Horological Institute. The Museum of Timekeeping is an independent charitable Museum (Registered Charity Number 1176495), established in 1994 to hold in trust the collection and library, brought together by BHI members since its founding in 1858. The Museum includes a collection of clocks, watches and timepieces and associated clock and watchmaking tools and ephemera. It can be visited during seasonal opening hours, plus a range of special events, or by booking a private group visit. The Museum of Timekeeping Library is one of very few existing specialised libraries dealing primarily with horology. It is open to researchers by appointment, and its holding includes a number of rare documents, papers, letters and books, particularly dealing with the high points of British horology in the 18th and early 19th century, but its catalogue contains comparatively few titles published in the last several decades. An exception is
THROUGH THE GOLDEN AGE – Charles Gretton – Watch and Clockmaking
', a 660-page volume about the life, era, and creations of celebrated clockmaker and watchmaker Charles Gretton (1647–1731), published in 2016.

BHI Gold Medal

The institute's gold medal for an outstanding contribution to horology has been awarded to: *1928 Frank Watson Dyson - Astronomer Royal who introduced Greenwich pips. *1930

Charles Édouard Guillaume Charles Édouard Guillaume (15 February 1861, in Fleurier, Switzerland – 13 May 1938, in Sèvres, France) was a Swiss physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1920 in recognition of the service he had rendered to precision measuremen ...

- developed Invar and Elinvar *1931 William Hamilton Shortt (1881-1971) - noted horologist who devised the Shortt–Synchronome clock *1946 Frank Hope-Jones (1867–1950) - developed electrical timekeeping, including Synchronome system *1947 Rupert Gould - restored

John Harrison John Harrison ( – 24 March 1776) was a self-educated English carpenter and clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought-after device for solving the problem of calculating longitude while at sea. Harrison's solution revo ...

's chronometer *1947 Warren Alvin Marrison - developed the quartz crystal clock *1948 Harold Spencer Jones - Astronomer Royal *1957 John Harwood - invented the self-winding wristwatch *1981 George Daniels - developed the

co-axial escapement The coaxial escapement is a type of modern watch escapement mechanism invented by English watchmaker George Daniels in 1976 and patented in 1980. It is one of the few watch escapements which have been invented in modern times and is used in most ...

now used by the

Omega Omega (; capital: Ω, lowercase: ω; Ancient Greek ὦ, later ὦ μέγα, Modern Greek ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and final letter in the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system/ isopsephy ( gematria), it has a value of 800. The ...

watch company.

References

External links

Home page of the BHIMuseum of TimekeepingBBC interview with Viscount Alan Midleton, curator of the British Horological InstituteBBC pictures of the British Horological Institute
{{Coord, 53.082672, -0.904158, display=title Organizations established in 1858 Time in the United Kingdom Horological organizations Organisations based in Nottinghamshire Professional associations based in the United Kingdom Museums in Nottinghamshire Horological museums in the United Kingdom 1858 establishments in the United Kingdom Upton, Newark and Sherwood