Drawn on extensively by other institutions for exhibitions, this is the most significant and extensive collection of clocks and watches held in any Australian museum.
All aspects of timekeeping, from domestic to public time and the scientific measurement of time, are encompassed. Primarily comprised of clocks and watches, the collection also includes tools and equipment for their repair, along with sundials and sandglasses.
The collection’s strengths are clocks and watches from the 18th and 19th centuries, encompassing British, European and American manufacturers. There are also items of significant Victorian and Australian provenance, including scientific timekeepers from Melbourne Observatory and public clocks from Melbourne buildings.
Significant items
- Watches by eminent 18th-century English watchmakers Thomas Mudge, William Dutton and George Graham.
- 18th-century bracket clocks, including by English maker Thomas Tompion.
- A 17th-century German table clock.
- Fine examples of 18th- and 19th-century watchmaking.
- Precision timekeepers from the Melbourne Observatory, including an astronomical regulator by London clockmaker Charles Frodsham (No. 1026), a regulator by government astronomer Robert Ellery, a Short No. 5 free pendulum clock, and chronometers used in eclipse and transit expeditions.
- Public clocks from Melbourne (including the Victorian Railways No. 1 clock, turret clock movements from Princes Bridge Station, Eastern Markets and Melbourne High School).
- Engraved presentation clocks and watches (e.g. to the chief engineer of the Hobson’s Bay Railway, 1854; to the captain of the immigrant ship Lightning; to the superintendent of the 1880 Melbourne Exhibition).
- Watchmakers’ tools and equipment, including a watchmaker’s bench.