McKay, Chris

Chris McKay (1949–2023) was a horologist and a renowned expert on turret clocks. He joined the Antiquarian Horological Society and its Turret Clock Group in 1969, later becoming its Treasurer, Secretary, Vice–Chairman and Chairman. He was also a member of the British Horological Institute and its Director in 2007–9, becoming a Fellow in 2013. Chris was also a bell ringer and in the 1960s and 1970s was affiliated with the University of Sussex Guild of Change Ringers.

Chris worked briefly in the civil service in Barry, Wales, fitting electronic equipment to an oceanographic research vessel. He later joined the commercial electronics industry and became involved in technical sales and marketing. He was involved, with Malcolm Loveday, in the research into the history of the Big Ben clock, to help place its 1976 failure in its historical context. He organised “The Great Salisbury Clock Trial” in 1993, organised the first Turret Clock Forum at the BHI headquarters in 2008, and established Turret Clock Taster days. He consulted and worked on clocks in the UK and beyond, including Argentina, Australia, Canada, Ghana and Italy.

He authored a number of horological books, articles and letters, including The Turret Clock Keeper’s Handbook (revised edition 2013), The Maintenance, Repair, Restoration, Conservation and Preservation of Turret Clocks (2016), Big Ben: The Great Clock and the Bells at the Palace of Westminster (2010), and Longitude's Legacy: James Harrison of Hull 1792–1875 (2015). He also issued a number of facsimiles of clockmakers’ catalogues and Bailey’s Illustrated and Useful Inventions.
Chris McKay lived in Hinton Martell, Dorset, UK, and for many years chaired the Dorset Clock Society and acted as the Salisbury Diocese Clocks Adviser.

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For an obituary of Chris McKay by Malcolm Loveday et al., see Antiquarian Horology, vol. 44 no. 3 (September 2023), pp. 317-20.

Image courtesy of the Horological Journal/British Horological Institute.