The Tower Clock of
the Cathedral Church of St. James, Toronto
by Graham Jones
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It measured the hours of God's grace
faithfully through a century of history. St. James' clock is
one of the finest examples of the clock-makers' skill in North
America. It is in a league with its near contemporary, Big Ben,
at the Palace of Westminster. But, to fully appreciate the story
of the tower clock of St. James, the reader must travel back
in time to the origins of the city of Toronto, to 1791.
This attractive booklet (24 pages) tells the story of the
great tower clock of St. James, the church itself, and the early
days of Toronto. The author is an engineer, and an authority
on monumental clocks (and smaller clocks, besides!). This is
a fascinating read for anyone remotely interested in history.
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"We trust... [the Tower Clock of St.
James] ...will, like the Old Flag of the Empire, under which
it was built, continue for a Thousand Years to be useful in recording
the flight of Time!"
Alexander Hamilton: December 24, 1875
Though the booklet is still in print, the economics of printing
and postage make it fairly expensive for such a small publication.
However, if you are keen to have your own copy, click here for
Ordering
info.
But the information in the book is so worthy it is a shame
to hide it behind economic expediency. Therefore it is posted
here in it's entirety as an Acrobat file, suitable for downloading
or on-line viewing. You will need the Acrobat Reader and/or the
PDFviewer plug-in. Get these free from Adobe's website.
A note about different browsers: Based on my own experience, the .pdf file displays
beautifully within Netscape using the PDFviewer plug-in. Try as
I might, however, I cannot get Internet Explorer to display the
book - it insists on downloading the entire file instead. That's
not all bad, you can view it at leisure off-line, but it is NOT
how it's supposed to work! If you WANT to download the file in
Netscape, you can do so by saving the link as a file......Rob
Lockhart
Now, if you are ready, click on the link below and enjoy! (note:
file size is 1.5 mbytes)
The Great Tower Clock
of St James.pdf
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To contact the author:
Graham Jones Antiques
342 Kerr St.
Oakville, ON
Canada L6K 3B8
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Tel: (905) 849-7881
Fax: (905) 825-0092
e-mail: jones@ica.net
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