For our August meeting we welcome Ashley Strachan to talk to us about Japanese clocks and seasonal hours.
Ashley is secretary of the East of Scotland Branch and a Board Member of the BHI responsible for Finance and Membership development. In March 2014 he was appointed a trustee of the BHI Museum Trust.
Ashley’s interest in Japanese clocks was kindled back in 2011 when he visited the Matsumoto Clock Museum during his first holiday in Japan.
It was not until 1873 Japan adopted International Time. Prior to this a system of Temporal Time was used dividing the day into twelve segments, six periods of daylight and six periods of darkness. Any mechanical timepiece required some method of varying the length of the day and night periods according to the season. This led to the design of some complex and interesting clocks.
In case you were thinking the Temporal Time system is now obsolete Ashley has a Japanese temporal time clock on his iPhone!!
For those who like to do their homework Ashley has recently had two articles published in the HJ one in September 2014 – Japanese Clocks and in January 2015 – Japanese Ten Thousand Year Clock.