Introduced in Europe in the mid nineteenth century, coming from the United States of America, where it appeared in the context of determining longitude by telegraph, the printing electro-chronograph, has, however, not been adopted in France before the beginning of the twentieth century .
Yet it is admitted, since the article by Simon Schaffer, "Astronomers mark time" (1988), that the use of electric chronograph at Greenwich Observatory from 1854 is a result of changes in practices within the astronomy : the advent of the "factory observatory."
In France, at least two prototypes were manufactured in the mid-nineteenth century. One was designed by Ignazio Porro (1801-1875) as part of his “parc astronomique”. Emmanuel Liais (1826-1900), developed his own printing chronograph between France and Brazil. Despite the "reorganization" of parisian astronomy by Urbain Le Verrier (1811-1877), it was not until 1900 that Maurice Loewy (1833-1907), then director of the Paris Observatory, promotes the model of Porro. He had discovered a copy modified by Aloys Verschaffel (1850-1933) in operation at Abbadia observatory. Paul Gauthier (1842-1909), gave a version of it which equipped all French national observatories in the early twentieth century.
It seems that the main obstacle to the use of this instrument is due to the situation of the French institutional astronomy in the second half of the nineteenth more than a technical problem.