Burgess, Martin

Edward Martin Burgess FBHI (1931–2022) was a horologist and master clockmaker. Born in Kingston upon Hull in Yorkshire, he became a leading expert on his fellow Yorkshireman John Harrison and his scientific approach to precision timekeeping. Burgess was one of the members of The Harrison Research Group, founded in 1977 by a group of horological scholars. He set about making two clocks according to the Group’s understanding of Harrison’s specification. The first of these clocks, known as the Gurney Clock, was on public display in Norwich from 1984 until 2015. The second, its sister clock (Clock B) was finished in 2014 in the workshops of Charles Frodsham & Co. and was subsequently successfully trialled at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.

Martin Burgess was also the creator of monumental ‘sculptural clocks’, one of which – the Schroder Clock commissioned in 1969 – was recognised in the Guinness Book of Records as having the largest clock wheel in existence.

In honour of his horological achievements, Martin Burgess was awarded the British Horological Institute’s Barrett Medal in 1988 and the Clockmakers’ Company Derek Pratt Prize in 2014.

He lived in Boreham, Essex, with his wife Eleanor.