Electric master clock

It was in his workshop in New Orleans that the French clockmaker Stanislas Fournier became interested in the use of electricity in horology. Winner of the Grand Prix for mechanical clockmaking at the 1867 Universal Exposition in Paris, he designed electric clocks and clock chimes. Ten years earlier he designed this innovative electric master clock to regulate other clocks via electrical impulses. This principle was later widely used by railway companies to synchronise the clocks in their stations, but also for the safe running of their trains.