Keeping time: a watchmaker’s history

Today we take it for granted that we can meet friends at an agreed time, work a set amount of paid hours, or catch a train before it leaves. But so much of the fabric of our modern lives is entirely dependent on one thing: the ability to accurately tell the time. Watchmaker and author Rebecca Struthers joins Ellie Cawthorne to chart the long history of watches and other timekeepers, and reveals how they have revolutionised humanity’s perception of time.

Rebecca Struthers is the author of Hands of Time: A Watchmaker's History of Time (Hodder & Stoughton, 2023)