Robert Pickersgill Howgrave-Graham (sometimes Howgrave Graham) F.S.A., M.I.E.E. (9 July 1880 – 25 March 1959) was a British polymath. He trained as an electrical engineer and became a teacher, inventor and author but his lasting legacy, through his interest in archaeology, is his work as an antiquarian, historian and photographer. Often noted as a horologist, he became a specialist in medieval church clocks, and his research work on the clocks of both Wells and Salisbury Cathedrals is considered scholarship standard. Upon his retirement from teaching he pursued both his interest in photography and archaeology, becoming Assistant Keeper of the Muniments of Westminster Abbey.
Early life and education
Robert Howgrave-Graham was born in Hampstead, London to Henry Howgrave Graham and Laura Julia (née Tennant). His father Henry was a registrar of patents, becoming first Secretary of the Chartered Institute of Patent Agents, who died just before the end of World War I. Robert's younger brother Hamilton Maurice Howgrave-Graham, C.B.E. (1882-1963) was a civil servant, a long-standing Secretary of the Metropolitan Police, who wrote two books Light and Shade at Scotland Yard and The Metropolitan Police at War about the service.
Both Robert and Hamilton were educated at Felsted School with Robert going on to study electrical engineering at the Finsbury Technical College under Silvanus P. Thompson between 1896 and 1899.
Career
Howgrave-Graham published his first article while still a student and throughout his life he published books and articles on diverse subjects from x-rays to clocks to funeral effigies, and his work is often referenced.
Electrical engineering
Howgrave-Graham commenced his career at the place he studied, City and Guilds of London Technical College, Finsbury, working as a demonstrator. He moved on to teaching and research work, undertaking experimental work with electric oscillations and on wireless technology. He is acknowledged as a contributor to the early development of wireless telegraphy. The Science Museum, London has, in its collection, an experimental Lodge-Muirhead wireless telegraph receiver, designed and built by Howgrave-Graham in about 1905 which he gave to the museum in 1923. The construction of the receiver is described in his book Wireless Telegraphy for Amateurs.
Due to health issues, Howgrave-Graham did not see active service in the First World War but, alongside his continued teaching duties, he lectured artillery brigades on the principles of gunnery and on field telephony. He also undertook research work on naval wireless telegraphy.
Shortly after the war Howgrave-Graham took up the post of lecturer at Northampton Polytechnic, an institute of technology in Clerkenwell, where he worked from 1919 until his retirement in 1945.
Clocks
Beside his teaching career, Howgrave-Graham pursued his outside interests, one of which was the workings of medieval clocks. In the late 1920s he gave a lecture to a meeting of the St Albans and Herts Architectural and Archaeological Society on Richard of Wallingford’s astronomical clock. At that time, he had already submitted a paper to the Society of Antiquaries of London questioning widely held views concerning the earliest appearance of clocks in Europe and in England.
After visiting Salisbury Cathedral and discovering the workings of an ancient clock, the horologist T. R. Robinson contacted Howgrave-Graham, who he had met while attending a lecture at Northampton Polytechnic that he described as “an inspirational speech on ancient turret clocks” to advise him of the find. After inspecting the clock, Howgrave-Graham worked with the friends of Salisbury Cathedral in having the clock brought down from the Great Tower and exhibited in the north transept of the cathedral. Howgrave-Graham continued to undertake research on the Salisbury clock and was instrumental in having the clock restored. He also undertook considerable research on the Wells Cathedral clock and promoted the theory that the Salisbury and Wells clocks were linked and from a contemporaneous period. The Wells Cathedral clock mechanism, which Howgrave-Graham helped to restore, is now exhibited at the Science Museum. His monograph, Peter Lightfoot - Monk of Glastonbury, and the Old Clock at Wells, was published in 1922.
Westminster Abbey
Howgrave-Graham was appointed assistant keeper of the Muniments at Westminster Abbey in 1945 and continued in the post until his death in 1959.