SIXTY-YEAR-OLD CLOCK

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 255, 25 July 1935, Page 8

SIXTY-YEAR-OLD CLOCK

Timepiece on Government Buildings

A VISIT TO THE TOWER The discovery that the beginnings of tradition have been laid about some of the common things of young Wellington was made by a journalist who gave up the chase after current news for a brief span and climbed behind the cloek that clangs so laconically from its 50ft. tower on Government Buildings. The Government Buildings clock is just like any other—until one gets behind the clock and its human associations. The journalist did not go expressly to see the clock, but surprising cues lurk in pleasant conversation. Unwanted Cabinet Chair. The beginning of the inquiry was the sight of an old chair against the wall in a public office iu Government Buildings. The chair is low, roomy, upholstered with horsehair and imitation red leather. Its front legs look like bulldogs’. Nobody uses the chair now. In its incongruous surroundings the chair has stood for weeks awaiting some decision as to its destination. AVhose chair is that? the visitor asked.

“It used to belong in there, I think,” replied an official. He pointed to the room next to tlie public counter. On the wall are brass hooks where Governors, Governors-General and Cabinet Ministers since 1876 have hung their top hats, as they passed into the Executive Council room used when Parliament is in session. “But nobody uses it now,” and his attention returned to the chair. “Nobody wants it. I don’t know what’s going to happen to it.” The inquirer was referred to the custodian, who said the old chair was one of the original articles of furniture associated with Government Buildings and had had 60 years of service. "That reminds me,” said the custodian, and be told how a retired AA’ellington postmaster, since deceased, came to visit the cloek tower. The postmaster said the clock was made in AVellington. As a cadet one of his first jobs was to convey to the maker the requisition for its construction—sixty years ago. Yet, he was challenged. So, merely to satisfy his faith in his memory, he sought permission to climb the tower. The custodian, without being asked, selected the "clock tower” key, and inquired: "AVould you like to see the clock?” The best custodians take a pride in the things in their care. As Big as a Mangle.

The door of the little clock tower was opened. Standing upon a wooden platform two feet high and less than three feet long and IS inches wide is the clock’s inechanism, appearing about the size of a boarding-house mangle! A spinclle runs from its centre to connect the hands. Against the wall is the crank used to wind the clock, a procedure teat raises the weight suspended on a wire down forty or fifty feet of wooden tubing. The pendulum swings through an aperture cut iu the floor. The frame of the clock is substantial. Two plates appear on the frame, and they read simply: “G. L. Jenness, Wellington, 1876.” “I hope it doesn’t strike and frighten me again,” said the messenger, “Why, were you ever frightened with a clock’s chime?” he was asked, “Yes, I was,” he said. “I remember—l9o6, June, on the day of the funeral of Dick Seddon, the Prime Minister. I was one of two given the job of going into the G.P.O, clock and standing on the beams to toll the knell. AVe had long sticks with muffled ends draped in black velvet. AVe had to strike the sounders of the clock. AVe were waiting for the hour to strike. When it did strike, I got a terrible fright; in fact, I nearly fell from the tower, and couldn’t carry on!” On the walls of the clock tower are pencil seribblings—boasts of the various clock-winders that they wound the cloek for so many years, terse comments pencilled by successors, such as “and the clock never kept worse time,” followed, very recently indeed, by Hie laconic Americanism, “Oh yeah!” There is a hole in the ceiling of tlie clock tower. “That’s where the men go to hoist the flag on important occasions,” said the messenger. "There are tlie remains of the old decorations, lights and so on used when our King visited AA’ellington.” Astronomer's Check. Time and temperature are related very closely. The seasons influence the time of the mechanism. The cold slows up the processes. Every chime of the clock is heard at tee observatory of the Government Astronomer, and there a check is kept. Synchronised communication has been made between the clock tower and the observatory. That explains why the custodian receives telephone messages at intervals, “Put half an ounce on the pendulum.” or “Take half an ounce off the pendulum.” Then a thin wafer of bnss is inserted or removed midway along the pendulum to speed or retard its swing. So is tee time kept in accord with New Zealand mean time according to the Government Astronomer’s Office.