A. Follett Osler - Career

Career

He was a member of the Birmingham Philosophical Institution (BPI) (Honorary Secretary of the Junior Department in 1841), the Royal Society, and the Birmingham and Midland Institute (BMI).

Shortly after giving lectures on chronology in 1842 he provided an accurate display of local time based on astronomical measurements on a public clock in front of the Philosophical Institution in Cannon Street from which the church clocks were set. It was eventually synchronised to Greenwich Mean Time by electrical telegraph when the railway timetable became important. Later a number of clocks around Birmingham were linked by wire. The clock was transferred to the BMI when the BPI closed down in 1852. In 1883, he gave a clock and bells for the tower of the new Art Gallery, which was constructed in 1885. This clock, nicknamed Big Brum then acted as the town's timepiece, replacing an expensive network of clocks wired around the town.

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