March 2021 Speaker
Once again due to COVID restrictions this meeting was organised as a Zoom meeting by our Chairman Maurice liaising with our speaker, John Hope on ‘Time through the Ages’.
John’s first words were ‘What is Time?’ and ‘What time is it?’ Time is indefinite, Past, Present and Future.
The Lunar calendar, which dates back to prehistoric times consisted of 13 months of 28 days and an original stone monument has been found in Scotland dating back to around 8000 BC.
The Solar calendar of 12 months with varying number of days per month was introduced by the Romans and in 46 BC Julius Caesar instigated The Julian Calendar. In 1582 Pope Gregory instigated The Gregorian Calendar.
John then told us about the various styles of sundials still standing around the world which the Egyptians used from 1500 BC for the next 3,000 years to 1500 AD. Tower Bridge and Paris have a couple of these ancient sundials and Central Park, New York and London have Cleopatra’s Needles.
Greek Water clocks appeared around 500 BC and Chinese Candle clocks in 520 AD which burnt incense and measured time by the burning rate. The Korean Striking clock dates from the 1400s and very large Elephant clocks and Castle clocks were also produced centuries ago.
Modern replica Water clocks can be found in Rome and Nottinghamshire and Grantham. Turret clocks were made to be put on churches and many of them are kept in working order today. Big Ben was originally erected in 1859 and the St Pancras Station clock in 1868. Both have been refurbished in recent years.
Maritime Chronometers were invented to enable sailors to determine the time wherever they were at sea.
Many of us have probably visited Greenwich Park in South London and stood on the Zero Greenwich Meridian Line for a photo, which is the basis of the time zones around the world today.
Nowadays many of us have battery watches or use our phones to check the time and set alarms, how times have changed!
It was very encouraging to see that we had a virtual audience of over 80 members who had all managed to access the Zoom link successfully again.