A walk through Chennai's historical public clocks

The Hindu

5 days ago

They stand all over the city. A few still tick on. Some have vanished leaving empty shells behind. Looked at one way, the public clocks and clock towers of Madras are sad reminders of the passage of time. But they also mark progress — from when time was approximate, then became accurate and from when we needed public sentinels of time to when we have them in our hands or our wrists.
Long before clocks came, we knew of time. Temples, mosques and churches, with their inflexible routines tolled bells or called out for prayer. When silence was not a luxury, these could be heard from far away and people timed their schedules accordingly. And then we had sundials. The San Thome Basilica sundial is perhaps the oldest, claimed to be at least 500 years old. Following this is the one at the Madras Observatory which dates to the 1790s. And far away in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, is a Madras sundial at Christ Church. There are no records of our city gifting it and it very likely commemorates the consecration of that church by Thomas Dealtry, Bishop of Madras, in the 1850s. Sundials however retain their fascination — as late as in the 20th century, the Madras Christian College Tambaram acquired one, and so did the Chinna Pallivasal in Pulicat.
Madras Time
Accurate measurement of time became very important when ships began calling. The Madras Observatory was very vital for this but given that it was deep inland in Nungambakkam, in the 1850s, a time ball, located on top of Customs House dropped at 1 pm and was visible to the ships. In 1860, this was corrected to 3 am GMT, which corresponded to 8hrs, 20 min, 57.33 sec by the Madras Observatory clock.
Church clocks
It is noteworthy that Fort St George had a clock mounted on a tower on its western side overlooking Parade Square, even in 1717. Thereafter, the churches of Madras bore the first clocks in the city. The first of these was at St George's Cathedral. This was sent as a gift from the Court of Directors of the East India Company in 1828. The St Andrew's Kirk in Egmore was the next. The congregation pooled funds and the installation was made possible in 1853. Peter Orr, founder of P Orr & Sons, did the installation. Sometime during the 19th century, the Church of St Mary's too acquired a clock, courtesy P Orr & Sons. Such church clocks being deep in compounds had limited utility value.
The first public clocks
Two public clocks, in the real sense, came up in 1873. The first of these was at Central Station. The four-faced clock was assembled by John Walker of England, a firm in the business since 1845. The bells came from the foundry of Gillet & Bland, Croydon. The clock chimed every 15 minutes and being at a height of 136 feet, was visible to all.
The second public clock was on the tower of POrr & Sons also completed in 1873. The showroom was designed by RF Chisholm even as he was working on Central and you can see the similarities between the two towers. Pogson was at hand to connect this three-faced clock electrically to the Madras Observatory and so it was noted for its accuracy. When in 1913 the Ripon Building clock tower came up at a height of 141 feet, its clock was imported by the departmental store of Oakes & Co, with the bells from Gillet & Johnston, the same firm that supplied bells to Central but by then having a new junior partner. The Ripon clock chimed the hour on the same tune as the Big Ben in Westminster.
Clocks at Educational Institutions
By the 1930s, educational institutions seem to have joined the race to put up clocks. The Presidency College retrofitted on itself a clock in 1930 (and not 1940 as is often claimed). Named after PF Fyson, the then Principal, it was completely developed in-house by Prof HP Waran (short for Parameswaran) right down to the illumination at night. Significantly, it was the city's first electric clock, with a mercury contact.
But others, such as the Women's Christian College (1937) and the University of Madras still relied on imported models. In the 1960s, the MCC and the MCTM School would have locally made clocks installed.
Clocks as Political Statements
While Princely states may have installed ornate clock towers as symbols of progress, Madras seems to have made a powerful statement through them. The Rao Sahib MC Madurai Pillai Clock, known now as the Doveton Clock Tower and erected in the 1930s, showed the munificence of a Dalit who had risen high in business. Immediately after Independence, the Corporation constructed clock towers at Royapettah, Mint, Thiruvottriyur and Perambur, as symbols of a new and resilient nation. The Doveton structure had already set the trend, and these were in Art Deco style, heralding a new age. Significantly, the clocks in them were also supplied by a local firm — Gani & Sons.
Thereafter, even though India began manufacturing watches and clocks, courtesy HMT, and their numbers among the public proliferated, clocks and clock towers continued to be occasionally put up and they made political statements. In 1961 came the Thiruvanmiyur clock tower and in 1967 the Kathivakkam tower. These were in the modernist style favoured by socialist regimes.
Ushering in Modernity
The Anna Nagar roundtana clock came up in 1970. It was the last that the Corporation constructed. A clock on a pole, its short height shows it was more ornamental than needing to show people the time. That the world was changing rapidly to electronics became manifest when in the 1980s, wristwatches and clocks began going digital. As though declaring their arrival, Tarapore Tower on Mount Road had an electronic clock put up in the late 1980s. It gives us the time and also temperature — a forerunner of a single gadget doing multiple things.
Public clocks have not ceased altogether. They are still being erected but they are purely ornamental. Which is why perhaps many don't work after a while. Maintaining them is a challenge and with time, technicians who knew their innards have dwindled. In England, Gillet & Johnston is still going strong, claiming to be specialists in repairing turret clocks. Maybe we need an equivalent in India too. Until then, these timekeepers to the nation, will like HMT, who made that tagline popular, be markers of time that passed by.