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Steam ClocksConcept and Considerations There may have been steam clocks before – however, the first famous steam clock in Europe we got notice of is one built by the British mechanic, engineer and inventor John Inshaw (1807—1893) of Aston, Birmingham (GB). Inshaw was really into steam engineering – a.o. he is known for his construction of a steam carriage in 1881 – and therefore decided to celebrate (and propagate) the power and benefits of steam with a steam clock. In 1859, Inshaw bought a public building in Ladywood, Birmingham. On this building he installed the mentioned steam clock. Note: This mechanism seems to be quite similar to those sported by early Elementaruhren (see ibid.) – more precisely: early water clocks. While Inshaw's steam clock obviously proved to be an attraction, it seems like it did not unleash a whole wave of steam clock installments – at least we could not find any related documents. However, more recently a whole variety of steam clocks have been constructed and installed in different places worldwide. Probably the most prominent public steam clocks are those built by Canadian clockmaker Raymond Saunders, first of which was installed in Vancouver, Canada, in 1977. We will proceed with some research on steam clock mechanisms anyway – however, the steam clocks mentioned so far are obviously built to display local standard time(s). Yet, in the framework of TBC research we are far more interested in alternate concepts for time pieces in general – and in this case for steam clocks respectively. As a matter of fact, we have meanwhile also found alternate steam clock models and mechanisms worth to mention here.
Among these are i.e. the Bratislava Street Bakery Steam Clocks. Note: We also tried to document the Street Bakery Steam Clocks on photographs and will be hopefully be able to add some illustrations soon. Btw. we could also mention some artists that have been very close to build steam clocks, i.e. Marcel Duchamp and later also Joseph Beuys (who also used the phase "Christus Erfinder der Dampfmaschine" – "Christ, inventor of the steam engine" coined by Rudolf Steiner for one of his works). However, in the end both very only close… Related Entries: |