In the past, how did people manage to display the same exact hour in different places of a factory, a train station or a town? The answer is: by using clock systems, which involved a master clock connected to several slave clocks.
In most cases, only the master clock had a proper movement. The slave clocks with their “pointer mechanisms“ did not work autonomously. Once every minute, the master clock sent an electric impulse to the slave clocks. This impulse made the electric magnets of the slave clocks push the minute hands one segment further. This is how the dials of all slave clocks showed the same hour.
Julius Hockauf made this slave clock in 1916 as his final project at the Furtwangen Clockmaking School. The clock is part of the legacy of the Hockauf family, who ran a clockmaker’s shop in Lahr for more than three generations.
Electric slave movement, Julius Hockauf, Furtwangen 1916, Inv. 2022-007