City of Hamilton Mantel Clock

This City of Hamilton model mantel clock was made 1880-1884 by the Canada Clock Company in Hamilton, Ontario (accession number 2014.05.01).  It has a solid walnut case, hand-painted flowers on the central glass tablet, and cherubs in front of angled vertical mirrors at each side.  The clock has a spring-driven, eight-day, time and strike, pendulum movement.Allan Symons is the Curator of The Canadian Clock Museum in Deep River, Ontario.  This is one of the most attractive among twenty-five different models of mantel (and wall) clocks in the museum’s collection of clocks made in Hamilton, Ontario in the early 1880s.  Other examples can be seen in the Galleries section of the museum’s web site at www.canclockmuseum.ca.The Canada Clock Company (Hamilton) was the third of three companies in Ontario over a twelve-year period starting in 1872 (in Whitby) that made their own clocks for the Canadian market.  They struggled against fierce competition back then from eight successful American clock companies located in Connecticut.This beautiful mantel clock was 100% Canadian-made one hundred and thirty-five years ago when the country of Canada was just fifteen years old !  Of course, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.These three early companies, ending with the Canada Clock Company in Hamilton, Ontario in the early 1880s, set the stage for Canadian factories to make products in this country for the Canadian market.  Later, starting in 1904 when Kitchener, Ontario was still called Berlin, and for almost forty years to 1941, The Arthur Pequegnat Clock Company produced dozens of models of mantel, wall, and hall clocks.  Unfortunately, the same as for the three earlier clock companies, no production records are known.