CRONULLA Plaza is home to the oldest public clock in Australia but only because the National Parks and Wildlife Service would not allow it to be installed at the Captain Cook Landing Place Historic Site, Kurnell.
Caltex Refining Company presented the 244-year-old clock to Sutherland Shire as a bicentennial gift in 1988.
For more than 200 years it had occupied the stable turret of an ancient English estate, Stanwell Place, in the Thames Valley near Heathrow Airport.
The clock's Australian odyssey is the story of the friendship of two men — Harry Babbage and Norm Davis — who met as students at Canterbury Boys High School.
Mr Babbage studied chemical engineering and joined Caltex.
Mr Davis moved to Britain to set up an international arm of Readymix Concrete.
The Stanwell estate dated from the Norman conquest and had a colourful history of ownership which included Henry VIII and King Faisal II of Iraq.
The clock, which was housed in a turret above the stables, was built by John Jullion or his son, who were in business in the nearby village of Brentford from 1730 to 1792.
Fast forward to 1987 and Mr Davis was visiting the museum at Captain Cook's landing place with Mr Babbage when he happened to mention that Readymix had acquired a site in England that housed a clock which he thought had been built in 1770, the year Captain Cook landed at Kurnell.
He commented that such a clock would be a wonderful addition to the museum. Mr Babbage agreed, providing it could be proven the clock was made in 1770.
Once the clock's age was established, it was boxed up and shipped to Australia in 1976 where it marked time in a warehouse while the Australian Oil Refinery and Sutherland Shire Council discussed where it should be installed.
Finally, the council agreed to make the clock tower the main feature at the northern end of Cronulla Bicentennial Plaza, then under construction.
Sutherland Historical Society president Bruce Watt said it was disappointing the design of the clock tower hid the clock mechanism.
Technical information and images: Doug
Minty, Darrell Colburt and Bruce Watt.
