Chapter 7

The Development and Use of the Pilkington

and Gibbs Heliochronometer and Sol
Horometer

Geoff Parsons

Abstract To meet the continuing requirement for an accurate time standard to

calibrate timekeeping instruments, George James Gibbs, later director of the Jere-
miah Horrocks Observatory in Preston, invented in 1906 the Pilkington and Gibbs
mean time universal Heliochronometer.
Gibbs went into partnership with the businessman William Renard Pilkington
who travelled the globe selling Heliochronometers as far as Russia, South America,
and Australia, often in regions where the telegraph, and later the radio time signals,
were not available.
The Heliochronometer was claimed to provide direct reading mean time within
an accuracy of 1 min. To convert solar time to mean time, the instrument used an
innovative cam mechanism to apply the equation of time and provided other
adjustments for longitude and latitude. The Heliochronometer was produced in
six different types, and versions were made for the Northern and Southern Hemi-
spheres. During production, the Heliochronometer underwent several design mod-
ifications to improve ease of use and to simplify manufacture.
The partnership entered difficult times and Pilkington developed his own mean
time sundial, the Sol Horometer, which looked similar to the Heliochronometer but
was sufficiently different to enable a separate patent to be issued in 1911.
Production of both instruments effectively ceased at the outbreak of WWI in
1914. Sales records indicate that only 1000 Heliochronometers were produced, but
due to their robust construction, many are known to have survived and are still
in use.
The Pilkington and Gibbs Heliochronometer and Sol Horometer are relatively
unknown but might be the last sundials in the twentieth century to be used as a
practical time standard.

G. Parsons (*)
North American Sundial Society, British Sundial Society, International Bureau for Weights
and Measures, Sevres, France
e-mail: geoffsundial@yahoo.co.uk

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 47

E.F. Arias et al. (eds.), The Science of Time 2016, Astrophysics and Space
Science Proceedings 50, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-59909-0_7
48 G. Parsons

This presentation will explore the purpose, development, and use of these
instruments and compare the manufacturing techniques and achievable accuracy.
It will place the Pilkington and Gibbs Heliochronometer in its rightful place in the
chronological history of timekeeping.

Keywords George James Pilkington • William Renard Gibbs • Mean Time

Sundial • Helio Chronometer • Heliochronometer • Sol Horometer • Preston
England • Jeremiah Horrocks Observatory

Gibbs went into partnership with the businessman William Renard Pilkington who
travelled the globe selling Heliochronometers as far as Russia, South America,
and Australia, often in regions where the telegraph, and later the radio time signals,
were not available.