It was also around this time that pocket watches were becoming more common, and it was generally being understood how widespread the phenomenon of altering cloc

It was also around this time that pocket watches were becoming more common, and it was generally being understood how widespread the phenomenon of altering clocks to cheat more hours of work out of labourers was. It even happened that people would bribe churches to ring in particular schedules. So perhaps its no surprise that there was a general mistrust of attempts to control time