The industrial revolution, it’s often said, brought about a new perception of time for vast swathes of the population. It was no longer good enough to base one’s day on the rising and setting of the sun, as farmers and their workers did. Industrial workers had to turn up when the factory gates opened in the morning, and there were severe penalties for lateness. Clock time, accurate to the minute, became essential. The same was true for the railways, although here there was an added complication. Until 1840, clock time was set according to the local position of the sun, so the time in, say, Bristol was different from that in London. This began to change in 1840, when the Great Western Railway introduced standard time, setting all their clocks to London time. This simplified railway working – and made it safer, as there was a greater risk of accidents when different time standards were in use.
As a result of all this, clocks became essential at railway stations. One of the pleasures of Victorian stations is that some still have early clocks. One of the most magnificent is this one, above the bridge connecting platforms at York. It’s elegant on its curvaceous bracket, has a clear face, and was keeping perfect time when I was at York station a few months ago. You can see the face from quite a distance, but not if you’re on the bridge itself, which is at right angles to the main face.The clockmaker therefore included another, smaller face, in the side of the clock’s case, visible to passengers crossing the bridge and also visible in my picture below. A neat solution to the question of giving passengers a sight of the clock as they rush across the bridge to their train, encouraging them to speed up or slow down according to how much time they have before their service departs.
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