I bought a Timex Expedition North Titanium Automatic a few months ago and have been enjoying it, but it gains about 10s a day that I have to correct. Nowadays we have incredibly accurate and precise clocks that can tell us exactly what time it is, but all mechanical clocks and watches have some amount of inaccuracy.

How did people account for inaccurate clocks in the past? Even if time didn't need to be standardized outside of a community until the railroads and a central clock in town could act as a reference for the entire community, wouldn't the central community clock drift? Eventually the central clock could say it was midnight at sunset. While people can tell that is incorrect, how could they say to what extent it was incorrect?