Do's anybody know why there is a 1oclock time signal (claxton siren) on the old wilson peck building in sheffield????

It’s just a guess, but to let people know it’s one-o-clock, perhaps? Or is it a second world war air-raid siren?

It’s just a guess, but to let people know it’s one-o-clock, perhaps? Or is it a second world war air-raid siren?
It's to calibrate the "Forum Clock"


<<<<<<<Oops

The reason it's on the old Wilson, Peck building is because it used to be on the H.L. Brown building that was demolished and the site redeveloped.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signal

The ceremony of "dropping the ball" at New Year's Eve in Times Square in New York City is a vestige of a visual indication of time. The first such time ball was installed in 1833 on the roof of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. The ball was set to drop at 1 P.M. to enable the astronomers to establish the correct moment it should drop by observing the sun at noon. Liverpool, Edinburgh, and Perth also had balls that were dropped concurrently with the firing of the time cannons. Because the speed of light is much faster than the speed of sound, visible signals enabled greater precision than audible ones; however, the audible signals could operate under conditions of reduced visibility. In 1861 and 1862, the Post Office Directory had time gun maps published that related the number of seconds it took for the report of the time gun to reach various locations in Edinburgh.

In many non-seafaring communities, loud factory whistles served as public time signals before radio made them obsolete.

Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_ball

Isn't it left over from civil defence and the three minute warning?

There was one on the roof of our junior school...

Isn't it left over from civil defence and the three minute warning?
I thought I once heard something about the city council wanting to remind us - back in the 80s - that nuclear war could be imminent. :o

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooo!

Quick, lean a couple of doors against the wall and paint the windows white - that'll protect you from that pesky thermonuclear detonation!

Its from the old work days to indicate end of lunch hour for factory and shop workers , i vagauley remember when i was younger shops actually shut for lunch .