A MET OFFICE PATTERN DINES TILTING SYPHON RAINFALL RECORDERMANUFACTURED TO A DESIGN BY WILLIAM DINES, CIRCA 1930 The hinged cylindrical upper section with brass rim inscribed M.O. TILTING SYPHON RAIN RECORDER, MARK I. REF No MET. 562 enclosing tapered funnel and with glass aperture for viewing the mechanism inside, the whole section tipping open to reveal mechanism comprising cylindrical copper cannister set on a counterweighted pivot with collecting aperture to top and draining spout to side, fitted with a pivoted armature connected to an internal float and terminating with an inked stylus for recording the level of the water in the cannister on a clockwork rotating paper-scale lined drum, on tapered base incorporating outlet pipe.85cm (35.5ins) high, 50cm (19.75ins) diameter at the base.The design of the current lot was devised by William Henry Dines FRS (1855-1927)in around 1920. William Dines was the son of George Dines, a master builder who worked for Thomas Cubitt and advised Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on the design and construction of Osborne House. Both George and his son had a particular interest in weather predicting hence became fellows of the British Meteorological Society. William Dines was educated at Cambridge and served an engineering apprenticeship at Nine Elms Locomotive Works at Nine Elms, Battersea. After the Tay Bridge disaster in 1879 Dines undertook serious work on air pressure which later culminated in the invention of his pressure tune anemometer. In 1901 he undertook upper air research using kites and meteorographs made to his design and was granted the use of HMS Seahorse by the Admiralty to assist with his observations. At this time William Dines was serving as President of the Royal Meteorological Society and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1905.Dines developed his design of tilting syphon rainfall recorder during the First World War and it was brought into use and adopted by the Met. Office from around 1920 and is still in use today. Dines design is notable in that it utilises a self-tilting mechanism which causes the syphon to be automatically emptied once full. The instrument then resets itself so that it can continue recording.