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Margate - Jubilee Clock Tower with a Time Ball on the top.
This clock tower was constructed to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen victoria in 1887 but was not complete until 1889. The clock tower was one of many options to celebrate this special event, some of these included a free library, an extension to the cottage hospital, a new town hall and many others. The local council appealed to the public for subscriptions towards the project and also set up a competition for the design of the tower. 63 entries were entered and eventually the design by Mr. Kaufman was chosen. A total of ÂŖ2,100 was raised, bust some of this money was to be used on other events also. Due to the lack of funds raised a cheaper design by Mr. Henry Arthur Cheers was used to construct the clock tower. The construction was finally handed over in a civic ceremony on the 24th May 1889. The tower holds five bells and above these was a time ball which used to raise just before 1pm and drop on the hour. The time ball has not worked for many years. The bells were replaced in 1908 by Gillett & Johnson, Croydon. Serious mechanical have occured due to salt spray over the years meaning the clock has not functioned for long periods due to the cost of repair being usually quoted as quite high
Source: kenthistoryforum
A Time Ball is an obsolete time-signalling device. It consists of a large, painted wooden or metal ball that is dropped at a predetermined time, principally to enable navigators aboard ships offshore to verify the setting of their marine chronometers. Accurate timekeeping is essential to the determination of longitude at sea.
Although the use of time balls has been replaced by electronic time signals, some time balls have remained operational as historical tourist attractions.
History
Time ball stations set their clocks according to transit observations of the positions of the sun and stars. Originally they either had to be stationed at the observatory itself, or had to keep a very accurate clock at the station which was set manually to observatory time. Following the introduction of the electric telegraph around 1850, time balls could be located at a distance from their source of mean time and operated remotely.
The first time ball was erected at Portsmouth, England, in 1829 by its inventor Robert Wauchope, a captain in the Royal Navy. Others followed in the major ports of the United Kingdom (including Liverpool) and around the maritime world. One was installed in 1833 at the Greenwich Observatory by the Astronomer Royal, John Pond, and the time ball has dropped at 1 p.m. every day since then. Wauchope submitted his scheme to American and French ambassadors when they visited England. The US Naval Observatory was established in Washington, D.C., and the first American time ball went into service in 1845.
Time balls were usually dropped at 1 p.m. (although in the United States they were dropped at noon). They were raised half way about 5 minutes earlier to alert the ships, then with 2â3 minutes to go they were raised the whole way. The time was recorded when the ball began descending, not when it reached the bottom.
With the commencement of radio time signals (in Britain from 1924), time balls gradually became obsolete and many were demolished in the 1920s.
Times Square, New York, USA
A modern variation is the Times Square Ball. It has been used since 31 December 1907 for New Year's Eve celebrations at New York City's Times Square, where a lit crystal ball located on a pole atop One Times Square is lowered to signal midnight and the arrival of the new year. Rather than the ball being dropped rapidly with its release used as the time signal, it descends slowly over one minute from 11:59 p.m. until midnight. For 31 December 1987, the event's organizers acknowledged the addition of a leap second by extending the drop to 61 seconds (although in fact the leap second was five hours earlier, as they occur worldwide at midnight UTC).
Source: Wikipedia
