A diversion off Cambridge Street today to look at the Paddington Town Hall clocktower. The Town Hall was built in around the same time as most of the residences on Cambridge Street, officially opening in 1891. The clock tower came later. In 1902, the Empire had a new king (Edward VII) and the residents of Paddington thought it fitting that they honour him in a clock tower (as you do). Here is a link to the SMH article of the day (link to Trove here) where the residents discuss the scheme. As you can see from the article the two suggestions discussed at the public meeting were "Edward the VII" and "Edwardus 1902" - both of these fine suggestions having 12 letters each. The council ended up cleverly going with "Edwardus The VII" which is 14 letters except that they made the VII actually correspond to the 7 o'clock. You can see the detail in the above photo with the E for Edwardus starting at the 8 o'clock. This is the side that faces Oxford Street.
The clock was started on 30 August 1905 by the Premier of NSW. From the comments attributed him by the SMH of the day (again, link to Trove here) he was most excited that the residents had paid for this themselves and not relied on his Government. He also thought that the day on which peace had been declared between Russia and Japan (ending the Russo-Japanese War) was a fitting time to set it in motion and hoped there would be peace and goodwill on earth as long as the clock continued to go. Someone tell Sydney Council to stop stopping it!
