Every time I drive around the Savannah I think of Tony Charlesworth, a British clock engineer. Charlesworth is the man who got the Queen's Royal College clock to run again. I happened to run into him while he was here fixing that clock, and I have never forgotten his fascinating story. I thought it was time to share it with you. One day Tony Charlesworth opened the newspaper and read an advertisement: "Wanted: Apprentice Clock Engineer." That ad caught Tony's eye. "I didn't know what a clock engineer was," said Charlesworth.
Charlesworth answered the ad for Smith of Derby, a company that has been in the clock business for 156 years. Now, 20 years after his curiosity got the best of him, Charlesworth travels around the world fixing vintage clocks-like the one at QRC, which dates back to 1905. The QRC clock is very special to Charlesworth. "That was the most challenging job I ever had," said Charlesworth. He had come to Trinidad about five years ago to remove all 300 parts of the one-tonne clock and put them in storage. When he returned to assemble the clock during the QRC renovations, he discovered, much to his horror, that some of the pieces were missing. As you can imagine, this was not an easy task. Warehouses really don't have parts for clocks that are over 100 years old.
"I had to send to England to get new parts made," said Charlesworth. When the parts arrived, Charlesworth assembled the clock. Eight men carried the clock to its resting place on the façade of QRC. Thanks to Charlesworth, the QRC clock is now chiming. It's four bells are ringing. "The clock faces were given a fierce lift-a new opal glass shipped from Germany, which is the only place in the world where you can get opal glass from," Charlesworth said once the clock was ticking again. The QRC clock has quite an interesting and regal history. It was made by Edward Dent, the clockmaker to the Queen of England. It is a Turret clock, a common clock for its age. We don't find those clocks being made anymore because they are too expensive to make. Still, many places-like QRC-are determined to preserve their unique pieces of clock history.
Charlesworth knows this because he looks after about 5,000 clocks around the world. In many ways, clocks are his life. "When I left school I dabbled in this and that. I never thought I'd be a clock engineer," he laughed. He's a clock engineer, but Charlesworth didn't go to clock school or attend a fancy university to learn his craft. Instead, he learned his trade the old-fashioned way-apprenticeship. The oldest clock Charlesworth takes care of is the Auld Simon, built in 1830 and located in a graveyard in Lochwhinnoch, Scotland. "There's no name plate on that clock so I can't tell who made the clock. It's a crude clock, all the gears were made by hand-nothing was made by a machine," said Charlesworth. Although the company Charlesworth works for, Smith of Derby, is located in England, Charlesworth is stationed in Dumfries, Scotland. There, he maintains about 1,000 clocks. I know that sounds like a lot of clocks, but in many villages of Great Britain clock towers were built as war memorials.
The names of the soldiers who died in World Wars I and II are listed on these memorials. At 11 am every November 11, all those clocks must go off at precisely the right time. Charlesworth travels all over Scotland to make sure that happens. Of course, Charlesworth can't just show up to fix a clock. There are procedures-a clock bureaucracy that clock engineers must adhere to in their profession. "There's a clock conservation society. They hinder us sometimes because we come up with ideas on how to alter a clock to maintain it and we have to go through them." One of the most challenging clocks Charlesworth ever worked on was the Dornoch Cathedral clock. Charlesworth drove 320 miles to see why the clock wasn't working. There he learned that a policeman named Fergus had inherited the upkeep of the clock from his late father who climbed 300 steps to wind the clock every day.
Fergus couldn't make the trip every day and the decision was made to put some electronic parts in the clock. Charlesworth had to figure out how to keep the historical value of the clock as much as possible while updating it with its electronic parts. Sometimes compromise has a value too. Charlesworth says being a clock engineer has been an unimaginably rewarding job and an extraordinary life. "The past is a reminder of how things were," says Charlesworth. When I'm long gone the QRC clock will still be there and I'm pretty sure that among people who know about that clock the name of Tony Charlesworth will come up. That will be part of my legacy." And a fine legacy it will be. What can be better than preserving time?
