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Horstmann Gear Co. Legacy Newbridge AUNI Mechanical Gas Lamp Time Switch Control; Horstmann Newbridge Repairs

Posted by Mark Lawton on 13 Oct 2009 | Tagged as: At Work, Engineering, Mechanical

Gas Lamp & Time Switch

Horstman Newbridge timer in a gas lamp

This article is about an “old timer”…

Not a person, but a legacy mechanical clock called the “Newbridge” or sometimes seen as  “AUNI” embossed on the casing lid, made by The Horstmann Gear Co. in Bath England (UK).

Some years ago when working at a small company in Walsall, UK, named “Heating Control Services”, we used to repair these clocks for various historic places, such as the Mall at Buckingham Palace, the Malvern hills, and somewhere in Scotland I think too .

Basically these clocks have to be wound up every 7 or 14 days (depending if they have a 7 day or 14 day mechanism) and they switch the gas lamps on and off at night.

Obviously there must have been some type of pilot light, as they were totally mechanical with no electrical parts whatsoever.

The dial has 2 on tappet arms, and two off tappet arms, so an evening on/off and morning on/off can be set.

Due to the daylight hours changing with the seasons, and when the clocks are altered for “daylight saving time”, as they now call it, these on-off settings would need changing, as they didn’t have a self-adjusting dial, known as a “solar dial”.

The mechanical Solar dial was employed in street lighting for a number of years, and may still be on some older installations.

Horstmann did claim to have invented the solar dial; this dial has 2 cams in it, and a peg and wheel arrangement, so one 24 hour rotation advances the cam by one tooth or notch, and thus the on-off times can be set automatically according to the daylight hours, and the dial never has to be altered even when the clocks change because they are tracking the daylight hours, and the cams push out, or allow inwards movement of the on/off times according to their position which is relative to the time of year. A profile is needed for each batch of dials used in different geographic latitudes because the daylight hours are different in other latitudes due to the curvature of the earth and the relative position of the sun from there seasonally.

A fixed off option tappet can be set to turn the lights off off at say midnight for example, and back on before the rush hour in the morning, as is the case for street lighting.

They have to be fitted for the correct region, so a dial for +52 degrees north would be OK for the Midlands UK or the same latitude elsewhere; but not OK for South Africa as mentioned earlier!

These days though we tend to use high efficiency lamps, and they turn on at dusk, and off at dawn using a photo-cell, and thus eliminating the need for a time switch. Due to there being more road traffic, and for improved security and safety reasons it is preferable to have the lamps on all night in a street nowadays. This does show one aspect of the worsening times we now live in, because of increased crime and lawlessness, and further evidence that we are living in the last days of this system of things!

Going back to the Hostmann Newbridge Gas Control Time switch…

We used to pick up 30-50 of these from Canning Town in London or nearby from the “Gas Board”. (what are they called now, National Grid? “all change”  whatever!)

Simplifying it, we would take them out of their cases, clean the mechanisms in cleaner/lubrication, drain them off, wind them up, try them out, repair any bad main springs and what we could from the spare parts from scrap units, and then we would regulate them to keep time OK accurately.

The cases were cleaned, and spray-painted a sort of sky blue or thereabouts.

They would be assembled, and then tested for on/off action with a gas valve that they controlled. If this was OK then they would be packaged, still all ticking away merrily, and then they would be personally taken to London by the manager, and sometimes myself driving for him to accompany him.

It was a good day out, and we picked up the next batch to do.

We did them from other areas too, be I can’t remember where they came from exactly.

If anyone knows of wants to have any of these refurbished, then I’m sure they’ll let me know, and then to be fair I would contact my retired colleagues to see if I could help again part-time to refurbish some of these clocks.

They are special, and nostalgic, and we shouldn’t lose this part of our history and heritage.

Read the history of Horstmann here… http://www.horstmann.co.uk/history.php it is quite interesting, and sad at times in a way, because of how things have changed, and that “something special” has been lost.

Here is an excerpt quoted here from the Horstmann website…

“1915 Newbridge Works was opened.
The property was owned by various members of the family – the block containing the Conference Room and Board Room consists of 2 houses once occupied by members of the Horstmann family.
The site covers about 4’/2 acres.
1905 56, Walcot Street was acquired for gas controller manufacture.
1914 Horstmann started making screw and limit gauges for military production, becoming a leading UK Gauge manufacturer until the business was sold in 1990.
1904
The Solar Dial was patented.
This was the first dial which automatically altered ‘ON’ & ‘OFF’ times each day to follow the varying times of dusk and dawn through the year. It gave Horstmann a worldwide technical lead.

Foundation of The Horstmann Gear Company Ltd. Sidney Horstmann (Gustav’s youngest son) designed an ingenious gear box for cars and motor cycles. It had an infinitely variable gear ratio – using expanding pinions. Sidney, together with his brothers Albert, Hermann, Otto, and brother-in-law William Edgar, amongst others, founded The Horstmann Gear Company Limited to exploit it. Both the ‘shop’ and the new company were now at 10, Union Street. The gearbox was not a success, but Sidney went on to make cars in his own business, also in Bath, producing about 1500 Horstmann Cars between 1913 and 1929, incorporating many novel features in them. Altogether about 10 still exist.

The gas controllers were now so popular, production was transferred from G Horstmann & Sons to The Horstmann Gear Company Ltd.”

What a history, and what a legacy; this is really a gem of history all in a “time capsule”, so to speak! It is sad sometimes to see old companies swallowed up, and their history lost and changed forever, even though modern technology does have a place.

I am now going to show you a series of pictures of the different parts of the Horsmann Gear Co Newbridge clock. This is my own clock I bought on eBay after years of searching on and off for one to keep as a memento to “Heating Control Services”, and “The Horstman Gear Co” at the Newbridge works.

You may not find pictures like this anywhere on the net, well I couldn’t find them; so hopefully someone will find them now, and each picture in this case has been named to be sure it will index on Google! (I hope)

The pics start with the , Key, then the mechanism removed from it’s casing, followed by the whole clock complete, showing different angles and with some parts removed.

Click on the pictures to enlarge, and a second time to supersize them please.

Enjoy…

I have an addendum…

Jason who has commented on here has a Horstmann Newbridge clock. He asked me if I could put him in touch with the people who repair them. I did, and he had his Horstmann Newbridge clock successfully repaired.

The first three pictures are of Jason’s Horstmann Newbridge clock, after the first three, the pictures are of my own clock bought from eBay for less than £10.00!

The pictures are below…

I have just found one link to another clock!

http://www.clock-museum.co.uk/c69.htm

Rare aren’t they?

If you have any comments, please add them.

Thanks for reading this far. If anyone visiting this site owns one or more of these clocks or knows anything about them, then please comment on my website.

Mark Lawton (UK)

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