James Arthur was born February 26, 1842, of Scottish parents at Crosscandley, Ireland. While he was still a child the family moved to Glasgow where he attended the technical school and trained in mechanics, metal and woodwork. At this early age he took an interest in horology and made sundials and started restoring and collecting clocks and watches. In November 1871 he came to the USA. His wife and the three older children followed in 1872.
James Arthur was a skilled mechanic with knowledge of machinery and fine construction. Fourteen years after coming to the USA he established the Arthur Machine Works at 188-190 Front Street, New York, for the manufacture and repair of machinery in general and in particular for the construction of models for inventors. The business proved lucrative, as he was able to make a world tour in 1897, and added many interesting pieces to his collection throughout his lifetime. He continued working until he retired in 1912. He died at Winsted, Connecticut, April 27, 1930.
On December 1, 1925, he donated his horological collection together with a substantial endowment to New York University, specifying that part of the endowment should fund an annual lecture. Daniel W. Hering, Professor Emeritus of Physics, was appointed Curator. The original collection of 1,336 items was enlarged, principally by donation, so that by 1932 it amounted to 1,464 items made up of 224 clocks, 1,190 watches, and 50 books. Of particular interest are the original tallcase clocks he designed and made. His notebook No. 1 contains the original designs of 13 tallcase clocks built in his shop by himself or his workmen.
New York University never completed the reassembly and display of the items and, in 1964, they moved from University Heights to the present location in Greenwich Village. At that time they transferred most of the collection to the Smithsonian Institution. In 1982 New York University decided to dispose of the Arthur Collection, dividing the items between The Smithsonian Institution, the Time Museum at Rockford, and the NAWCC Museum at Columbia, Pennsylvania.
The late Ward Francillon was instrumental in making the James Arthur Lecture the keynote of the Annual NAWCC Seminar, continuing that part of Arthur’s original legacy which NYU had fulfilled only intermittently. The first NAWCC James Arthur Lecture was at the 1984 Seminar in Hartford, Conn.
James Arthur Lectures at N.Y.U.
"Time and Its Mysteries" 1932-1984| Year | Title | Lecturer |
|---|---|---|
| 1932 | Time | Robert Andrews Millikan |
| 1933 | Time and Change in History | John Campbell Merriam |
| 1934 | On the Life-time of a Galaxy | Harlow Shapley |
| 1935 | The Beginnings of Time Measurement and the Origins of Our Calendar | James Henry Breasted |
| 1936 | The Time Concept and Time Sense Among Cultured and Uncultured Peoples | Daniel Webster Hering |
| 1937 | What is Time? | William Francis Gray Swann |
| 1938 | Time and Individuality | John Dewey |
| 1939 | Time and the Growth of Physics | Arthur H. Compton |
| 1940 | The Astronomical Scale | Henry Norris Russell |
| 1941 | The Geologic Records of Time | Adolph Knopf |
| 1946 | Time and Historical Perspective | James T. Shotwell |
| 1949 | Developments in Portable Timepieces | George P. Luckey |
| 1951 | The Early American Clock Making Industry | Brook Palmer |
| 1953 | From Hours to Microseconds: Three Centuries of Timekeeping Progress | Arthur L. Rawlings |
| 1969 | The Hypothesis of Environmental Timing of the Clock | Frank A. Brown, Jr. |
| 1972 | Physics at the Origin of Time | J. Woodland Hastings |
| 1975 | Time and the Atom: Precise Measurement of Time with Atomic Clocks, Molecular Beam Spectroscopy with Molecules, Atoms and Neutrons | R. Omnés and Steven Frautschi |
| 1978 | Time Without End: Physics and Biology in an Open Universe | Freeman J. Dyson |
| 1980 | Reality, Illusion and Time: Time and Light Beyond the End of Time - John Archibald Wheeler | John Archibald Wheeler |
| 1984 | Symmetry Principles in Physics; Time as a Dynamical Variable Discrete Theory of General Relativity | Tsung Dao Lee |
NAWCC James Arthur Lectures
| Year | Title | Lecturer |
|---|---|---|
| 1984 | Horology and the Whole Man | Dana J. Blackwell |
| 1985 | Paradigms and Clockmaking | Douglas H. Shaffer |
| 1986 | Mark Leavenworth, Clockmaker | Snowden Taylor |
| 1987 | The Time of Our Lives | David Landes |
| 1988 | The Importance of Horology in Our Lives | Seth Atwood |
| 1989 | The History of British Public Timekeeping | Beresford Hutchinson |
| 1990 | The History of the Watch | Henry B. Fried |
| 1991 | Horologists Oiled the Industrial Revolution | Theodore R. Crom |
| 1992 | Uses of the Atomic Clock | Norman F. Ramsey |
| 1993 | The Mechanical Watch in the Twenty-first Century: The Renaissance of the Mechanic | George Daniels |
| 1994 | Horological Ephemera, Its Variety, Availability, and Importance | David Penney |
| 1995 | Clockmaking or Timekeeping | Douglas H. Shaffer |
| 1996 | Running a Railroad on Time | Dr. Ian Bartky |
| 1997 | Bristol's Clock Museum in the Early Years - Who and What Made It Tick | Bartlett Barnes |
| 1998 | Modern Time, Old South | Mark M. Smith |
| 1999 | Horological Gods and Heroes | Chris H. Bailey |
| 2000 | The Early Collectors | David Thompson |
| 2001 | American Wristwatches | Bruce Shawkey |
| 2002 | Watches and Clocks: The Road to Quality Mass Production | David K. Landes |
| 2003 | The Long Now | Alexander Rose |
| 2004 | Horology in Science and Science in Horology | Jonathan Betts |
| 2005 | The Inventive Mind | Dr. David Collard |
| 2006 | The American Influence on Swiss Watchmaking | Antoine Simonin |
| 2007 | The Beginning of Mass Production: Eli Terry and the Porter Contract | Donald Hoke |
| 2008 | Curtis Mann | |
| 2009 | No Sympoisum | |
| 2010 | Saving Time for the Future: Conservation and the Paradox of Restoration | John R. Watson |
| 2011 | Tall case Wood Works Clocks | Philip Morris |
| 2012 | The Search for Truth | John Hubb |
| 2013 | The Time of Our Lives | Will Andrewes |
| 2014 | Introduction to Breguet | Philip Poniz |
| 2015 | The History of Music Boxes | Steve Boeh |
| 2016 | What Do Clocks Have To Do With Time | Thomas Allen |
| 2017 | Time in American Painting | John Wilmerding |
| 2018 | Collecting Antiques Long Before it Was Cool | Robert C. Cheney |
| 2019 | The Heinlein Pocket Watch | Thomas Esser |
| 2020 | No Sympoisum | |
| 2021 | Ordering Time in Times of Disorder: Clocks and Sundials behind Enemy Lines | Sara Schechner |
| 2022 | Collectors and Their Great Collections | Daryn Schnipper |
| 2023 | Edward Duffield and 18th-Century Pennsylvania Horology | Robert Frishman |