Electric clock from Brno railway station, 1905

In depth

In 1900, the city of Brno, in what is now Czechia, went electric, installing trams, street lighting and several top-of-the-range electric clocks – one in the town hall, one in the church of sv. Jakub, and one in each of the twin towers of the central railway station (each with three dials). These were commissioned from the local clockmaker Johann Antel, a farmer’s son, who had secured a patent for an electric turret clock design on 15 July 1903.

Antel’s innovation was to transform the tower clock from a timekeeper to an electrically-powered subsidiary dial. Rather than remaining subject to the vagaries of wind and weather, his turret clock receives time signals from a high-quality regulator kept in a central control room, out of the way of interference. This time signal would come through each minute, starting the motor, which ultimately advances the hands on the dial, using a train of wheels between the first and second plates. However, since Antel (or his client), was nervous about the reliability of the electricity supply, this movement also incorporates a mechanical, weight-driven backup.

This is the only movement to survive from Antel’s railway station installation, which dates from 1905, shortly after the building was remodelled in Italianate style by Josef Nebehosteny (1852–1921). It comes from the east tower; the west one having been destroyed in an Allied air raid during the Second World War. The city invested heavily in its new electric clock, which, despite its remote location, was extensively nickel-plated. This may partly have been for aesthetic reasons, and prestige, but the plating also camouflages Antel’s extensive use of recycled metal in the movement. Though it is unlikely that Antel’s ideas influenced makers in other countries, in the decades following his death they were adopted independently elsewhere with much success – notably in the UK by Gent.