Steam Clocks

A Victorian-looking street clock that whistles on the quarter hour, the steam clock is mostly a 1970s invention, born on a Vancouver street corner over a city steam vent.

What a steam clock is

A steam clock is a public clock that uses steam for some of its work, most obviously to blow whistles that mark the time. Most are styled to look like 19th-century street furniture, but the Historical Marker Database's record of the Gastown clock's plaque points out that nearly all of them were inspired by Vancouver's clock of 1977.

The one well-known exception came much earlier. The same record notes a 19th-century steam clock built by the Birmingham engineer John Inshaw, long before anyone thought of putting one on a Vancouver sidewalk.

Why Gastown got a steam clock

In the 1970s the city was trying to revive the historic district, and, as the CBC reported on the clock's 40th anniversary, the clock was built to cover a street steam vent the city found unsightly. The vent belonged to the district heating system: a 1980 account says the Central Heat Distribution Plant supplied the clock's steam, and the City of Vancouver says the clock still serves as a steam vent for Creative Energy Canada. One structure solved both problems.

The project got under way in 1974, when Jon Ellis of the city council's Gastown special projects committee teamed up with Saunders, the Gastown merchants and the Gastown Lions Club, according to that 1980 account in Farm Collector. Saunders, then a clock and watch repairer and metal sculptor, told the CBC it was the first steam clock he had ever worked on. The final bill came in at more than double the estimate he gave when he proposed the clock in 1975, the CBC says, though the CBC, the 1980 article and the clock's plaque each give a different figure for what it cost.

The City of Vancouver says Saunders built the clock in 1976 and that it was dedicated to the citizens of Vancouver on September 24, 1977. The 1980 article adds that it was assembled on site in a continuous working day of 28 hours to meet the contract deadline.

How it works, and how much is really steam

Behind the bronze and glass, the Gastown clock is a weight-driven clock. Its mechanism, according to the 1980 article, was built by Gillett and Johnston of Croydon to an 1875 design, with a 42-pound gold-plated pendulum on a hickory rod. What keeps it going is a falling-ball drive, which the plaque credits to Douglas L. Smith: steel ball weights ride down a vertical chain, and as each one drops off at the bottom, a second chain lifts it back to the top. The plaque says steam carries a weight to the top every four and a half minutes.

How much steam does today is a point of debate. The 1980 account says the clock first ran on electricity and went fully over to steam in July 1978, using small single-cylinder steam engines made by Stuart Turner of Reading, one working and two on standby. The CBC reported in 2017 that the steam motor lasted only about 10 years before breaking down and that two electric motors now wind and ventilate the clock, which has led some critics to call it faux history. On one point the sources agree: the whistles still sound on steam.

In October 2014 the city took the clock in for about eight weeks of major repairs, because the moving parts of its ball-loading device had worn over 37 years of service.

The whistles

Five whistles sit on top of the Gastown clock. According to the 1980 article, they play the Westminster chimes each quarter hour and the large central one sounds on the hour, worked by a pinned drum, much like a barrel organ's, and solenoid valves. That central whistle, it says, once belonged to the paddle steamer Naramata, which worked British Columbia's interior lakes. The whistles were silenced during the hours of darkness.

See also: the Westminster quarters the Gastown whistles copy on OnlineClock.app.

Other steam clocks

Saunders went on to build more. The Gastown plaque record lists his steam clocks in Otaru in Japan, Indianapolis, Whistler, Port Coquitlam and Vancouver. The Indiana State Museum, which has one of them just outside its canal entrance, says its whistles play snippets of the song Back Home Again in Indiana every 15 minutes. That clock went silent for seven years because of mechanical problems; the museum took it down for repair in late June 2018, called in Saunders as its designer, and reported in 2019 that it was working again.

Others had a go too. In 1984 Tim Hunkin built a steam clock with Andy Plant for the Chelsea Farmers' Market in London. Its boiler drove a small engine that wound the clock and blew a whistle on the hour, and two figures on top swung out to put their fingers in their ears just before it sounded. Hunkin says it proved hard to maintain and no longer runs, though it is still standing.

How to recognize one

A true steam clock gives itself away within a quarter of an hour: look for whistles on the roof and a plume of steam when it chimes. Most, like Gastown's, imitate Victorian or Edwardian street clocks, so the period look alone tells you little about the age. On the Gastown clock, smoked glass side panels let passersby watch the balls and drive at work, and four bronze plaques at its base record its history.

See also: street and garden clocks made to live outside on OnlineClock.app.

Keep exploring

Sources

1. Gastown Steam Clock undergoes repairs (City of Vancouver)
2. Revered and reviled: The Gastown steam clock turns 40 (CBC News)
3. Gastown Steam Clock (Farm Collector, 1980)
4. The Gastown Steam Clock marker (Historical Marker Database)
5. Indiana State Museum steam clock singing again after seven years (Indiana State Museum)
6. Giant Steam Clock (Tim Hunkin)