2-798-539 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Perspective view of the Great Clock of the Royal Exchange, 1844. 'The clock of our Exchange is now going, and what is of equal importance, it is going accurately..The clock...has not varied one half second during the last four weeks!...the Gresham Committee, for rebuilding the Royal Exchange, being desirous of procuring a clock which would give the instant of mean time at Greenwich, solicited the assistance of the Astronomer Royal [Sir George Biddell Airy] in the adaptation and arrangement of the clockmaker's machinery, and generally in the regulation and approval of the entire work..it was finally determined to commission Mr. [Edward] Dent, the chronometer maker, with the charge of constructing the "perfect clock"'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol V.