| CANADA CLOCK COMPANY (WHITBY) |
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The text and images below were provided by Canadian clocks expert Jim Connell. Jane Varkaris also did some of the original research for the book that they co-authored in 1986. PICTURES TO BE ADDED MID MARCH 2010
THE CANADA CLOCK COMPANY
Whitby, Ontario (1872-1876)
History of the Company
The Canada Clock Company is of considerable historical interest, because it was the first attempt to produce clocks in Canada using factory methods. It was begun in 1872 by three brothers: William, John, and Edward Collins. The plant was equipped during the latter months of 1872, and limited production began in January 1873. William Collins appears to have been the initial investor. John Collins, listed as Manager, was in charge of technical matters and production, while Edward Collins appears to have simply been an employee in the plant.
Later in 1873, William Collins attempted unsuccessfully to attract more investment capital. At that point John Hamer Greenwood, Mayor of Whitby, invested money hoping to secure the clock factory as a permanent Whitby industry, and William Collins withdrew. Production in the balance of 1873 and 1874 appears to have been somewhat successful, and 30-hour OG (OGEE) clocks were shipped in some (unknown) quantity.
Unfortunately, in early 1875, Mayor Greenwood, now company President, was forced into personal bankruptcy, having overextended his finances. The factory, valued at $45,000, had to be sold to satisfy creditors. In April 1875, another prominent Whitby personality, Col. James Wallace, assumed financial responsibility for the clock factory. At once he made vigorous efforts to secure additional business for the firm. Calling himself Proprietor, he met with some success but appears to have been handicapped by insufficient capital. His efforts to sell the going company, or attract new partners, came to a sudden end in December 1875 when a serious fire damaged the factory.
The fire stopped all production, but there appeared to be no serious damage to the machinery. There was some insurance coverage, but not enough to cover the losses suffered by Col. Wallace. At this point, he was left with a quantity of clocks and empty cases, which he then cleared out in two auction sales in 1876 and 1877. He advertised that some of the clocks were fitted with movements obtained from the Ansonia Clock Company (this is the only known time that clocks were sold either in Whitby or later in Hamilton with imported movements).
This ended all efforts to manufacture clocks in Whitby. Back in April of 1876 he had been successful in selling the machinery and other tools to investors in Hamilton, Ontario. These investors were James Simpson, a wholesale grocer, and George Lee, who was also active in the food business. They formed a new company, The Hamilton Clock Company, to resume production of clocks and were able to expand the business. John and Edward Collins also went to Hamilton, where they helped set up the new company. John was appointed Mechanical Superintendent.
The Hamilton Clock Company was reorganized in 1880 and re-named The Canada Clock Company Limited, now based in the same Hamilton factory. The stories of these two companies are described in two other sections of our web site Galleries.
The Clocks Produced at Whitby
The only clocks produced in quantity were 30-hour OGs with weight-driven, time & strike movements. This simple style of clock was still popular at the time in Canada, after its original introduction in the United States in the 1840s when the first brass movements became available in North America, and they sold well. It was similar to American production OG clocks and did not change during the four years of activity in Whitby.
Two examples are illustrated here.
(photo)
CAPTION: This is a typical example of regular OG clock
production in Whitby, from about 1874.
(photo)
CAPTION: This clock came from one of Col. Wallace’s
clearing auctions and contains an Ansonia movement.
The case is an end-of-line item, with no veneer on the curved surfaces. This deficiency is concealed by a coat of dark varnish. The clearing auction notices also mentioned a number of other case styles to be sold. Few of these have survived, but we can show two examples of experimental (?) cases that contain Ansonia spring-driven movements. These case styles were not produced by the successor companies.
(photo)
CAPTION: A simple clock with spring movement and Whitby label.
(photo)
CAPTION: This example is similar to the previous, except for the bevel top.
The Labels on Whitby Clocks
Four label variants have been found and are shown here. These reflect the many changes in management that were described above.
(photo)
CAPTION: This was the first label used at Whitby. No company officers
or place name are shown, possibly because an effort was being
made to sell the company to new investors. Note the image of
a beaver (a Canadian symbol even back then!) – facing left.
(photo)
CAPTION: The second label in time shows J. Hamer Greenwood as President,
and John F. Collins as Manager. The beaver now faces right.
(photo)
CAPTION: In the third label, the name of James Wallace
as Proprietor replaces Greenwood.
(photo)
CAPTION: The fourth label was used in the clearance clocks
with Ansonia movements after factory production ceased.
The names of Wallace and Collins again appear,
but the BEAVER is gone.
Movements Used at Whitby
As noted above, only one movement type (30 hour time and strike, weight-driven) was actually produced at Whitby. There were, however, a few evolutionary changes made as time went on and these are shown here.
(photo)
CAPTION: Research indicates that the Collins Brothers made a
close copy of the OG movement used by the Waterbury
Clock Company of Connecticut. A comparison of the
two movements is shown here.
(photo)
CAPTION: This is the first movement made at Whitby
It is distinctive because the upper plate was held on the posts
by bent wire pins. The escape-wheel bridge slopes downwards.
(photo)
CAPTION: In this second variant, the metal pins have been
replaced by brass nuts to hold the upper plate.
(Waterbury movements never used brass nuts).
(photo)
CAPTION: The third and last known variant continued to use
brass nuts, but the escape wheel bridge is now
mounted in a horizontal position.
(photo)
CAPTION: Included here as a matter of interest is the Ansonia
movement used by Col. Wallace to clear out old stock.
(photo)
CAPTION: Whitby movement plates were usually (but not always)
marked with this company stamp.
For further reading see the following book:
The Canada and Hamilton Clock Companies, Jane Varkaris & James E. Connell, Boston Mills Press, Erin, Ontario 1986
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| OUR SUNDIALS |
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The museum has several sundials that operate well on SUNNY days. Click on one of the pictures below to show the complete set, then click on any picture to enlarge it and read the caption.
There are two portable garden sundials on the front lawn that are not very accurate. One has the typical flat dial and fixed gnomon (shadow caster) on a concrete base. The other with adjustable gnomon for setting local latitude has a brass armillary type of dial where the shadow cast by the arrow shaft moves across the semicircular array of hour markers.
There are two wall sundials that show standard time during the winter and daylight saving time during the summer. These were designed and made for the museum in 2001 and 2003 by Julian Brown of Kingston and are modernized versions of the types of wall sundials used thousands of years ago. Time is read from the straight edge of the shadow on the dial.
The colourful wall example with the copper gnomon on the front of the building catches the mid-day through afternoon sun. The tip of the shadow moves daily as the shadow gets longer (December 21 to June 21) or shorter (June 21 to December 21). The tip falls on one of the colour zones that refer to the seasons - green for summer grass and white for winter snow, red and yellow for both spring flowers and fall leaves.
The wall example around the corner with the pink Plexiglas gnomon catches the morning and mid-day sun. Both wall sundials are two feet square. Note the very different layouts of the dials because of their 90 degrees difference in angle to the sun.
In the summer of 2008 we installed a "human" analemmic sundial on our front lawn. A visitor can stand on the correct month on the centre board set into the lawn and use his/her shadow falling across an array of numbered round patio stones to estimate current time to within about ten minutes. The pink stones are used for daylight saving time and the grey stones for standard time.
Because of our climate, this unusual sundial is buried under snow during the winter, from late November through late March ! (But our wall sundials still work well, on sunny days, in the winter).
Douglas Hunt at www.sunclocks.com in Scotland can provide the correct dimensions for the layout of a human sundial based on your latitude and longitude on the earth. Apparently these designs are very popular with schools, where the centre board and numbers can be set out on the playground.
Check out this interesting sundials web site: http://www.sundials.co.uk/types.htm.
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| ANIMATED ALARM CLOCKS |
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Animated windup alarm clocks were made in the early/mid 20th century by various companies in many countries, including Canada, the United States, Great Britain, France, and Brazil. These animated clocks were originally sold for use by children, but have become very collectible by "kids of all ages" today. Some early rare models are worth hundreds of dollars.
The museum has a small collection with representative examples from the major manufacturers: Westclox (Peterborough), Ingraham Canadian (Toronto), Smiths (England), Lux (United States), and Sturm (Brazil, for Westclox?). We are still looking for affordable animated alarm clocks made by Bayard (France) and Waterbury (United States).
These pictures were taken by 2008 summer student Michelle, then edited and put on the web site by 2009 summer student Megan.
Click on one of these images to pull up the complete set of animated alarm clocks.
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| CANADIAN ADVERTISING CLOCKS |
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There were many models of advertising clocks produced for the Canadian market, starting as early as the 1920s for clocks with electric motors. Most companies were located in Ontario and Quebec. Our museum's collection currently holds more than eighty examples that promote brand-name soft drinks, beer, service station products, mattresses, bicycles, and cigarettes. Most of these are shown in this Gallery.
Note that the square Raybestos "Brake Service for Safety" clock uses a windup pendulum movement made by The Arthur Pequegnat Clock Company in the 1920s/30s. Most examples seen with this colourful dial had an electric motor. Presumably the windup version was available for service stations located in areas of rural Ontario that were not yet connected to the electricity grid back then.
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| THE ARTHUR PEQUEGNAT CLOCK COMPANY |
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The history of Arthur's company can be found in the Canadian Makers section of our web site.
Our museum has an almost complete set of the roughly ninety catalogued models of mantel, wall, and grandfather clocks produced by The Arthur Pequegnat Clock Company in Berlin / 1916 / Kitchener, Ontario between 1904 and 1941. There are also some unusual examples in our Pequegnat collection.
In addition to pictures of the clocks, there are closeups of some typical movements, dials, and labels.
We welcome requests for information about YOUR Pequegnat clock.
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| SNIDER CLOCKS (Toronto, 1950-1976) |
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The Snider Clock Corporation was Harry Snider's first clock company, in operation in Toronto from 1950 to 1957. The Snider Clock Mfg Company produced clocks from 1957 to 1976. The CANADIAN MAKERS section of our web site has details about the history of these two companies.
Our unique museum received a small Community Memories contract from Heritage Canada in 2007 to research and tell the Snider clocks story. The project was completed with the assistance of Michael Snider and summer student Megan Morris. The results can be found in the Community Memories section of the Virtual Museum of Canada web site. The fastest route is to search on Google for "The House of Snider", including the quotation marks.
Here are pictures of most of the more than one hundred and seventy examples of mantel, TV lamp, and wall clocks in the museum's growing Snider collection. The dates in the captions are mostly estimates. New Snider clocks are acquired regularly through purchases on eBay, in antiques malls and flea markets, and by donation.
Note that the battery-operated movements available in the 1960s and early 1970s were NOT the quartz type that we know today. They were balance-wheel movements that received an electrical impulse from a large C or D cell flashlight battery. Typically they were enclosed inside a clear plastic box.
Most of the photographs were taken by summer student Megan Morris in 2007, then edited and added to the site by her in June 2009.
CLICK ON ONE OF THE FIVE PICTURES TO OPEN THE SET
OF THUMBNAIL IMAGES. THEN CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO
ENLARGE IT AND SEE THE IMAGE CAPTION.
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A Proud Canadian Web Site
![original box for a Double Rhomb animated alarm clock (with new alarm clock, late 1960s, China) [Cultural Revolution promotion - see picture of clock from box]](http://www.canclockmuseum.ca/images/image.php?id=1690&size=gallery)
![Double Rhomb animated alarm clock with red-painted metal case and double bells (windup, late 1960s, China) [note Chairman Mao on dial, student's animated arm waves his Little Red Book, the Cultural Revolution]](http://www.canclockmuseum.ca/images/image.php?id=1691&size=gallery)
![Double Rhomb animated alarm clock with red-painted metal case and double bells (windup, late 1960s, China, new in box (see picture of it)) [NOTE: Chairman Mao NOT on dial on this example but student's animated arm waves his Little Red Book, promoting the ill-fated Cultural Revolution]](http://www.canclockmuseum.ca/images/image.php?id=1692&size=gallery)
![Ingraham Canadian "The Mountie" model animated alarm clock, red plastic case (windup, 1950s) [made in the Toronto factory for the Canadian market]](http://www.canclockmuseum.ca/images/image.php?id=1693&size=gallery)
![Ingraham "The Westerner" model animated alarm clock with red-painted metal case (windup, 1950s) [similar model in United States is Roy Rogers riding Trigger in desert with cactus]](http://www.canclockmuseum.ca/images/image.php?id=1694&size=gallery)
