Electric twenty-four hour dial sympathetic clock movement designed to operate with the Royal Observatory's Shepherd Motor clock system. It has a brass and steel, four pillar movement, the front plate stamped: ‘JM8274’, the black paper-covered impulsing coils, using green silk-covered copper wire, mounted on the left hand side. A knurled adjusting knob on the backplate is for controlling the return spring on the impulsing arm. The twelve inch white-painted dial has Arabic twenty-four hour numerals (0 at '24') and a subsidiary seconds dial below '0' with Arabic ten seconds figures. The clock has blued steel spade and poker hands. The dial is signed ‘VICTOR KULLBERG LONDON 6391’.

A number of sympathetic dials such as this were made by Kullberg's for the Royal Observatory at the end of the 19th century to increase the availability of GMT in the various rooms in the buildings at Greenwich. A very similar clock was, for example, in use in the chronometer room in the Great Equatorial Building. Kullberg’s archives show that No.6391 was in fact one of four such clocks (6390-6393) made for Kullberg, in March 1897, by John Morrison of Packington St, North London, just a few streets away from Kullberg’s premises in Liverpool Road.

Victor Kullberg (1824-90) was born in Visby on the Island of Gotland, Sweden. He was trained by the Swedish chronometer maker Victor Soderburg in Stockholm in 1840 and emigrated to London in 1851, having moved to his permanent address at 105 Liverpool Road, N1, by 1870. During his lifetime Kullberg gained many medals and awards for his chronometers and enjoyed a truly international reputation. As well as supplying many foreign governments, he regularly submitted chronometers for the Annual Trials at Greenwich Observatory, gaining first place in 1864 with a chronometer fitted with his newly invented ‘flat rim’ balance. His inventions included several designs of compensation balance and improvements to keyless winding for pocket watches. He also designed the automatic gas-governor for controlling the temperature of the chronometer testing ovens at the Observatory. More than 500 chronometers by Kullberg were supplied to the Royal Navy alone and he can be said to have been one of the 19th century’s finest chronometer makers. On Kullberg’s death in 1890 the firm was taken over by George and Peter Wennerstrom, themselves succeeded by Sanfrid Lundquist who had joined the firm in 1894 and who moved the firm to Cranford in Middlesex in 1938, trading under the name of Victor Kullberg until his death in 1947).