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The Encyclopedia of Horology

Reutlingen and Neuchâtel, Germany and Switzerland · 1813 – 1893

Matthäus Hipp

Partially verified

Electric clocks and impulse mechanisms

Life & work

Matthäus Hipp worked on electrical timekeeping and is associated with the Hipp toggle, a mechanism that supplies an electrical impulse to a pendulum only when its swing falls below a set amplitude.

The principle allowed electrically maintained pendulums to run with minimal interference, and it remained in use in electric clocks into the twentieth century.

Training, contributions & innovations

  • The Hipp toggle impulse arrangement used widely in electric clocks
  • Contributed to early electrical timekeeping and telegraphy

Inventions & patents

  • The toggle's attribution is well established in the electrical horology literature; patent details should be read directly.

Signatures & markings on surviving work

  • Signed instruments and telegraph apparatus are recorded in institutional collections.

Collecting significance

Signatures on historic work were applied by retailers and by later hands as well as by makers, so attribution should rest on the movement's construction and on documented provenance rather than on the name alone. A specialist opinion is worth obtaining before any purchase made on the strength of a signature.

Diagram

12345let downstripcleanoilregulateorder of work; never skip letting down the mainspring
Schematic: order of work at the bench. An outline schematic drawn to show the arrangement of the parts discussed here. It is not a dimensioned working drawing and does not depict a particular maker's calibre.

Sources & references

  1. Britten, F. J., Old Clocks and Watches and Their Makers
  2. Loomes, B., reference works on British and European clockmakers (edition-dependent)
  3. Museum catalogue entries for signed examples

Where sources disagree, the disagreement is stated rather than resolved silently.