COLLECTION OF CLOCKS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3802, 25 January 1927, Page 10

COLLECTION OF CLOCKS.

A POOR MAN’S HOBBY. (From Oub Own Cobbesbondent-) SYDNEY, January 13. All sorts and conditions of men have all sorts and conditions of hobbies. Some men grow up with their hobbies and grow old with them, but whereas Joseph Quigg, caretaker of the Bunnerong cemetery at Botany, near Sydney, is growing old with his, he did not acquire it until he was in middle life. -And surely there is no hobby stranger than Quigg’s. It is the collection of clocks. In the 20 years he has been engaged in his hobby, Quigg has gathered together nearly 500 specimens of the watchmaker’s art. His cottage is full of clocks and watches, practically no two of them alike. Once Mr Quigg used to have them all going, and the work of winding them tooK six hours one day a week. Not all of them needed winding so often, for several clocks in tho collection will run for a year without being wound. It was Quigg’s mechanical turn of mind and clever fingers which enabled him to gather so large a collection at so small a cost, for he is a comparatively poor man. He never bought a watch or clock that was in good running order, but found his bargains in salerooms, where often a number of clocks, apparently useless, would be knocked down to him at a nominal price. He bought them, liR-j dukes, at two a penny. Once he paid £3 for an English grandfather clock, and that is the most costly in his collection, though many others now are far more valuable. For some of his clocks Quigg has had some tempting offers, but he loves them like children, and would not part with them.

Of musical clocks there are several, besides cuckoo clocks. One has a huntsman who steps out and sounds his horn at the hours, the blast being followed by a merry hunting tune. Another has a hoary monk, who beats a bell severely at the hour and half-hour, while another has two bellringers, who pull laboriously at string ropes to tell the hours. Quigg’s love for the bizarre is shown in his choice of pendulums. One is made from what is said to be the key of the first prison van in Sydney, another from a shoe of a pony killed on a Sydney racecourse. The largest clock is one that is stated to have been the first post office clock in this city. There is a clock built entirely of wood and dating from 1640; another is said to have been at St. Helena during the time of Napoleon’s imprisonment there. The only really modern note in the collection is a working model of. Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford. Every hour the former goes through the actions of emptying a teapot over Mary Pickford’s picture hat.