Master Time Recording Clock

It was common practice to have a time recording system for employees which involved stamping a Time Card with the time that the employee arrived or left work.
The cards were stored in numbered racks adjacent to the machines. The wages clerks would calculate the pay for employees from the information printed on each card at the end of each week. The early machines required the employee to insert a card into a slot in a ‘Clock Machine’ and then to manually depress a lever to stamp the card; a process known as Clocking in or Out’. Later machines automatically stamped the card when it was inserted. The Clock Machine had an integral clock and sometimes these were stand alone but in a large organisation it was important that all the Time Clocks registered the same time so they were synchronised to a Master Clock. The Master Clock system included a programmeable unit on which events could be preset such as weekends or National holidays.

It was common practice to have a time recording system for employees which involved stamping a Time Card with the time that the employee arrived or left work. The cards were stored in numbered racks adjacent to the machines. The wages clerks would calculate the pay for employees from the information printed on each card at the end of each week.

The early machines required the employee to insert a card into a slot in a ‘Clock Machine’ and then to manually depress a lever to stamp the card; a process known as Clocking in or Out’. Later machines automatically stamped the card when it was inserted. The Clock Machine had an integral clock which had to be accurate as the early clocks were stand-alone and only when electric clocks were introduced could they be synchronised with all others on a large site.