Object data
wood and brass
model: height 119 cm × width 30.6 cm × depth 27.1 cm
packaging capsule: height 120.5 cm × width 34.4 cm × depth 30.5 cm
Rijkswerf Vlissingen
Model of a Time Signal
Flushing, c. 1854
Inscriptions
- label, on the base: 827 former inventory label
Conservation
- Ab Hoving, October 2008: missing part reconstructed (mechanism); retouched
Provenance
...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883
Object number: NG-MC-827
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Model of a time signal, mounted on a rectangular base.
The model consists of a pole with four circular metal gratings at the top, mounted against a vertical plank. The grating can be manipulated by means of a mechanism halfway up the plank: a weighted lever, locked when the gratings are vertical, can be released so the gratings slide into a horizontal position. A chain-and-pulley system allows the entire pole to be hoisted up, but not before the operating mechanism is removed.
This model is a slightly improved version of model NG-MC-826.1 It was probably made when the first time signal in the Netherlands was erected in Flushing in 1854. In 1846, the Leiden professor Frederik Kaiser (1808-1872) proposed this type of time signal for synchronising the chronometers on ships, instead of the more expensive time balls,2 and they were introduced to all Dutch ports in the 1850s.3
Scale unknown.
Literature
F. Kaiser, ‘Het plan ter oprigting van een tijdmeter-observatorium te Rotterdam verdedigd en toegelicht’, Nieuwe Rotterdammer Courant (1846), nos. 260-262, 264; J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 827; F. Kaiser, ‘De tijdseinen der Nederlandse Marine’, Verhandelingen en berigten betrekkelijk het zeewezen (1860), no. 1, pp. 139-225; E. Dekker, ‘Frederik Kaiser en zijn pogingen tot hervorming van het sterrenkundig deel van onze zeevaart’, Tijdschrift voor de geschiedenis der geneeskunde, natuurwetenschappen, wiskunde en techniek 13 (1990), no. 1, pp. 23-41, p. 29-36
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'Rijkswerf Vlissingen, Model of a Time Signal, Flushing, c. 1854', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.244641
(accessed 26 December 2024 21:42:31).