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This is a replica of a clock designed by Thomas John Murday who took out a patent on it in 1910. About 150 of the clocks were made by the Reason Manufacturing Company of Brighton. The whereabouts of 30 of the originals is known, one is in the Science Museum, London.
Murday was an electrical engineer who turned his attention to the application of electricity to timekeeping. This battery driven clock is one of the more interesting of early electric clocks in that a large balance wheel, with a period of 4 seconds is used, instead of a pendulum and employs the Hipp-toggle principle to actuate an electro-magnet. The toggle switch operates, causing a new impulse to be given to the balance wheel, only when its arc of swing has decreased to a pre-determined level. The balance wheel's motion turns a countwheel, via a system of counterbalanced levers, which in turn drives the gears which move the hands.
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