Papers of W H Shortt relating to the 'Shortt Clock' and other inventions, plans, notes, etc.

Administrative / biographical background
Shortt was born at Wimbledon and started his career as a railway engineer in 1902. He served as a captain in the Royal Engineers during the First World War. Later he became a prominent Fellow of the Insitution of Civil Engineers and held the post of Western Divisional Engineer, Southern Railway. Shortt gained renown in working with the horologist Frank Hope-Jones to develop the free-pendulum clock, an idea first conceived by R.J. Rudd. The Shortt clock manufactured by Synchronome Co Ltd of Clerkenwell in London was introduced in 1921. It surpassed all previous clocks in performance, being capable of keeping time to within a few seconds a year. For a long period it was the standard timekeeper at observatories and laboratories all over the world, including the Royal Greenwich Observatory. For this achievement Shortt was awarded the Gold Medal of the British Horology Institute in 1941and the Tompion Gold Medal of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers in 1954.