Greg Jackson

The club was very fortunate to have Greg Jackson give a talk at our meeting on 8th July on the three 'timepieces' he has built for each of his three daughters. 

Not ordinary clocks, by the way; these are hand-made, one-off works of art and engineering of the highest quality and complexity.

Greg started his first astronomical clock whilst working as a designer at Glaxo, Ulverston in 1988, and it took him 20 years to build.

An extraordinary feat which sees a grandfather-style clock standing at 7' -1'' tall and weighing in at around 2 hundredweight. 

As an astronomical clock, Greg told of its accuracy of 0.57 seconds over a year, how the clock is aligned to the planets, adding that the perpetual calendar will need no adjustment until the year 2100.

This clock is so complex that referring to it as a clock, albeit an astronomical clock, doesn't do it justice. Indeed, Greg has produced a 37-page instruction manual showing how to use and maintain the mechanism 

The second clock was designed as a means of recording births, deaths, and marriages in his family tree, and he has traced his ancestry back to the 17th century.

During the construction of this clock, Greg also discovered that the mother of the engraver of certain parts of this clock, and Greg's aunt, were sisters!

This clock weighs in at a mere 6'- 9'' tall and a weight of a mere 70 kilos!

Greg started construction of his third clock in 2020, and it features a woodland scene with birds feeding in strict time and date order, flowers which open and close as the day starts, and finishes and elves acting as the weight mechanism by swinging on the pendulum.

Although not yet completed, Greg expects to finish this last timepiece 'in a few years'.

President Peter Garwood expressed our members' collective amazement at the sheer amount of work involved in these projects, and Rotarian Geoff James gave a vote of thanks to Greg for a very entertaining and well received presentation.

Report by Club Secretary Brian Boyd.