For Western society, in the medieval period clocks became very useful because of the monastic Liturgy of the Hours of the Catholic church, which asked monks to perform a ceremony ( Lauds, Compline, Vespers etc) every three hours. It was possible to have a monk turning an hourglass, or refilling a simple water clock...but then that monk would have to be awake. Sometime in the 14th c. was invented a very simple "verge and foliot" gearwork clock: it did not have to be very precise, as it only had to ring every three hours. And it did not have to be very regular, because it could be re-set every day from a sundial, so it did not mater if it ran somewhat fast, or somewhat slow.
Farmers would not tend to need clocks- it was impossible to work outside unless there was daylight, so waking with the sun and working until it set was enough. But tradespeople and merchants in towns were more scheduled; it was useful for them to have a clock. How else for two merchants to arrange to meet at the same time to discuss a deal, keep appointments? Without a clock, one would have to stand and wait for the other. How else to make sure the maid arrived at the merchant's house before dawn to start a fire in the fireplace? How else to summon the hired workmen to the shop? Many large towns built a town clock that could strike the hours and regulate urban life. These became increasingly elaborate, adding indicators for the phases of the Moon, the months and days, etc.
In the 16th c. there became a greater and greater interest in trying to have clocks that actually kept time, did not need to be constantly adjusted. The Emperor Charles V tried in vain to get all the clocks in his palace regulated well-enough so they would all ring at the same time, but that kind of regularity had to wait for the invention of the pendulum movement . Galileo seems to have thought of the principle, but it was really Christian Huygens in 1656 who created it. With that, clocks could be relied upon to accurately divide a day into seconds.
David S Landes : Revolution in Time