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2 Jan. 89: At 5:27 p.m. the clock started under its own power…just a gentle push of the pendulum and it began to tick."
Bruce Hannon and Mike Westjohn. Entry in the 1878 clock restoration logbook.

Treasures of the College
Remembering the Time

We are surrounded by reminders of time: wristwatches, wall clocks, and digital displays on computers, pens, and every music device that can be clipped to a backpack strap. But there was a time when simply knowing the time was a luxury. In the late 1800s, few students or faculty members had watches. Faculty lectures ran long, students were late for classes, and everyone missed appointments routinely.

Professor Stillman Williams Robinson, the first mechanical engineering professor at the University of Illinois, assumed the task of putting the university on a common time. When he arrived on campus in 1870, he drove mules out of a 24- by 30-foot building that had housed a workshop and stable and converted the space to an educational machine shop. A few years later, he gathered a group of students together to design and build a tower clock. The clock was presented to the university as a gift of the Class of 1878.

Fred Francis, who graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1878, made the original clock drawings and was among those who helped construct the clock. In a 1922 article, he wrote, "During my time in the University a watch or clock cost considerable money. Most of us were lucky if we could scare up enough to buy from some departing graduate a second-hand potato kettle, let alone any timepieces. Stemwinders and open-faced watches were of course unknown and alarm clocks very rare." An owner of one of the rare watches, he "found himself in much demand."

The clock was installed in the west tower of old University Hall, where the Illini Union now stands. With a "bold little push" to the 110-pound pendulum, Francis recalled in a letter, Robinson’s group started the clock to cheers from students on the ground below. A secret of the day, revealed in his later correspondence, was that a spring designed to keep the clock going while it was wound was left off and a few adjustments were needed to make the clock more accurate. To avoid dampening the students’ enthusiastic reception, Francis and Robinson waited until the cover of darkness to stop the clock and solve these problems.

The clock was put in storage when University Hall was torn down in 1938. It was reinstalled in the cupola of the Illini Union in 1941, but parts had been lost and an electric motor was installed on the escapement to run the gears. Later, another motor was installed to directly turn the hands. When Bruce Hannon took up the challenge of restoration, he found that the original clock works had been neglected and some pieces were lost. In 1988, a century after the clock was unveiled on campus, he called on engineering students to "preserve a piece of engineering history." Hannon, who earned his doctorate in engineering mechanics at the U of I, is a professor of geography and a Jubilee professor of liberal arts and sciences. Possessing a keen sense of heritage, he works on mechanical clocks, some more than 200 years old, in his spare time.

"A restored clock is a reminder that we have respect for labor and craftsmanship of the past," he said. "Continuity is important. When we respect the past, we’re better able to look to the future."

Hannon gathered the main student restoration crew: Byron Colvis, Steve Cosper, Mark Dieringer, Sue Dileto, Michael Dorneich, Andrew Meinert, Eileen Prior, David Reuter, and Karl Wasegren. They worked in the university foundry, near the shop where the clock was built. Mike Westjohn, a machinist in the university’s Roger Adams Lab, read about the project and joined the group. A $1,000 appropriation stretched only as far as raw materials, so Hannon, Westjohn, and the student team donated time and labor to make lost or broken parts.

One of the first problems was figuring out the design. Acting on a hunch, Hannon located original drawings in Francis’s Kewanee home. The team used enlarged photographs of those works to identify parts and decipher specifications. They made every effort to stay true to the original design.

"The restoration was authentic and very difficult," Hannon said. "It’s amazing what they were able to do in that era. They were extremely clever."

The clock was assembled and started in January 1989, and the Class of 1989 stepped forward to make the restored clock its gift to the university. Refurbished and renewed, the 1878 Tower Clock will reside in the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory addition, which is expected to be completed in the fall.

Robert Coverdill, a senior research engineer with the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, is overseeing construction of a mantel-type display case for the new Rosenthal Gallery, named for Lorelei and Ben J. Rosenthal, a 1963 graduate of the department. According to Coverdill, the case will be trimmed in wood to reproduce details of the original clock tower. The front panel will be glass and a transparent dial will allow visitors to see the clock works.