The Silent Electric Clock Company was established by George Bennett Bowell after he parted ways from Synchronome company founder Frank Hope-Jones in 1897. Many Silent Electric Clock Company clocks were installed in British Post Offices and are designed to send out regular pulses at intervals required by the service.
This clock incorporates the Bowell make-before-break contacts, which switch a resistor into the circuit across the coil prior to breaking the main contact, allowing the resistor to reduce the spark-producing voltage. It also uses a Hipp toggle – the pallet escapement devised by German clockmaker Matthӓus Hipp in the 1840s – though this is fitted on the contact block, rather than on the pendulum. Pulses are sent out at one second and 30 second intervals, and a synchroniser has been fitted for automatic time correction. There is no dial or date on this clock, but since the Silent Electric Clock Company was taken over by Magneta in 1925-6, it presumably predates this period.
