Signedon bearing race on weight-cord offset drum: FAFNIR / MADE IN USA
Inscribedsticker on case door interior: cleaned, / Jan. 1903 / Nov 1951
note in case written by David P. Wheatland: Gravity Impulse Astronomical / Regulator / Bought from Harvard Astronomy / building (demolished) by DPW / 1957/ cleaned (again) by John Losch / & set up in Boston at #1205 / November 17 1988
note in case written by David P. Wheatland: CLOCK / Bought by DPW / 1957 / from Astronomy / Harvard
Historical AttributesThis astronomical regulator was first owned and used by the Department of Astronomy at Harvard University. Around the time that the Astronomy Department's building was demolished, the clock was relocated to the Jefferson Physical Laboratory of the Department of Physics. In 1957, David P. Wheatland purchased the clock.
Repairs were done around 1960 at Mr. Wheatland's request by Harold Benner in the Cruft Laboratory of the Physics Department. The instrument file has some measured drawings of the clock by Mr. Wheatland on the old letterhead of the Harvard University Graduate School of Engineering Officers' Pre-Radar Training Course, located in Cruft Lab, with E. L. Chaffee as Director.
Mr. Wheatland set the clock up in his home. The clock was later owned by his daughter, Barbara Wheatland. Her estate "returned" the clock to Harvard in 2010 as a gift to the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments.
ProvenanceDepartment of Astronomy, Harvard University; moved to Jefferson Physical Laboratory 259 after Astronomy's building was demolished. Purchased by David P. Wheatland, 1957 but possibly not removed from Jefferson Lab until 1960; then presumably set up first in Topsfield, MA and later transferred to his Boston apartment in 1988. The next owner was Wheatland's daughter, Barbara (Bee) Wheatland of Sargentville, Maine. Gift of the estate of Barbara Wheatland to CHSI, 2010.