Richard was born, the son of a
blacksmith, at
Wallingford in Berkshire (now
Oxfordshire) in England, in 1292. When he was
orphaned he was taken to
William de Kirkeby the
Prior of Wallingford Priory and dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Wallingford was a dependant priory to St Albans Abbey. Richard subsequently spent six years studying at
Oxford University before becoming a monk at
St Albans. He later studied for nine more years at Oxford. In 1327 he became
abbot of St Albans. Richard is best known for the
astronomical clock he designed, while he was abbot, which is described in the
Tractatus Horologii Astronomici (1327). The clock was completed about 20 years after Richard's death by William of Walsham, but was apparently destroyed during
Henry VIII's
reformation and the
dissolution of
St Albans Abbey in 1539. His clock almost certainly was the most complex
clock mechanism in existence at the time in the
British Isles, and one of the most sophisticated ones anywhere. The only other clocklike mechanism of comparable complexity that is documented in the 14th century is the
astrarium by
Giovanni de Dondi. Richard’s clock gave the mean time in equal and unequal hours, as well as the true solar time. It also displayed the phases of the moon and showed the positions of the lunar nodes and the height of the tide at
London Bridge. Based on the 14th-century literary evidence still surviving in the 20th century, scholars of
horological history have tried to build recreations of Richard of Wallingford's clock. The best known of these was built by Haward Horological and for many years was displayed at the Time Museum (now defunct) in
Rockford, Illinois; it is currently on display at the Halim Time and Glass Museum in
Evanston, Illinois. One was built by Eric Watson and is now in the
Wallingford Museum; one built in 1988 is located at St Albans Cathedral; and one was built by Don Unwin for the
Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge. Richard suffered from what was then thought to be
leprosy (though it might have been
scrofula or
tuberculosis) which he apparently contracted when he went to have his position, as abbot of St Albans Abbey, confirmed by the Pope at
Avignon. He died at St Albans in 1336. == Studies in astronomy and mathematics ==