Future of former city clock in doubt
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Winnipeg’s original city clock could go back into long-term storage for the second time in its 122-year history as Edmonton Court in Portage Place is demolished.
When Winnipeg’s ‘gingerbread’ city hall opened in 1886 it featured a tower with a round opening on all four sides, but a clock was not part of the original tender. It wasn’t until 1902 that the city set aside money for such a feature.
Norman Andrew of Andrew and Co. Watchmakers in the McIntyre Block won the bid to procure and install the timepiece. He chose a clock by the Seth-Thomas Clock Company of Connecticut. It cost $1,700, but the modifications needed to strengthen the tower and add lighting brought the final bill close to $3,000.
Free Press file photo
Winnipeg’s old ‘gingerbread’ city hall, featuring clockworks first installed in 1903, is depicted in this colour photo signed by former mayor Stephen Juba. The clockworks were included in the Edmonton Court clock at Portage Place and their future is unclear now the mall is being redeveloped.
The clock consisted of four clock faces, each 7 feet in diameter. The weights to keep the works in motion were 1,600 pounds. The zinc and steel pendulum weighed 225 pounds, and 42 couplings were needed to make up for the sway of the tower and contraction in cold weather.
The 1,600-pound bell was relocated from its belfry in the nearby market building and it sounded when the clock struck the top and bottom of the hour.
After days of testing, the pendulum was tied to one side so that Mayor John Arbuthnot could cut a ribbon to officially set it in motion at a midday ceremony on Victoria Day, May 25, 1903. The clock’s timing was a little off as he got just one word into his speech, “Gentlemen…”, when the long noon-hour chime began.
Initially, Norman Andrew and his staff looked after the clock’s annual maintenance, then William T. (Bill) Muirhead, a watchmaker at Dudley’s Jewellers, took over from the late 1920s until at least 1950.
By the early 1950s, decades of coal soot, grime and the elements had taken their toll on the clock works and it required a great deal of maintenance to keep ticking. By the end of the decade, the stability of the tower itself came into question.
Winnipeg Tribune Collections, U of M Digital Collections
The city clock was removed from the old city hall clock tower after the tower was condemned in 1961.
City hall’s clock tower was condemned in June 1961 and removed a few weeks later. The rest of the building was demolished the following year.
The city clock was disassembled and put into storage at a time when heritage preservation was unheard of. The city bell reappeared on Selkirk Avenue in 1985. Two years later, the city clock became the centrepiece of the new Portage Place mall’s Edmonton Court.
The faces of the clock are replicas, and the large bell was replaced by smaller, computer-controlled chimes, but the clock’s works and pendulum are still there to see.
What should happen to the clock?
It is not the type of artifact that you could easily erect inside of, or affix to, an existing building. Interestingly, the Market Lands development is currently underway just metres away from where both the city clock and city bell stood watch over the city. Could the two be reunited at their former home after 65 years?
