Gillett & Johnston Clock at Yalumba Winery, Adelaide, Australia

Gillett & Johnston Clock at Yalumba Winery, Adelaide, Australia

It is easy to forget how much work Gillett & Johnston have completed overseas and it is only when we receive communication from people who have come into contact with our clocks on their travels that we are reminded how magnificent it is to have ties around the world going back to the start of the company in 1844.  We have had communication from a couple who recently returned from their travels in the Barossa Valley Wine region near Adelaide in South Australia and were kind enough to contact us with the attached photos of the Gillett & Johnston Clock they found. intrigued I started looking into our archives.

I found on the website for the Yalumba Winery that the clock tower plans for the winery were signed off  by the son of the founder Sidney Samuals and installed between 1907 and 1910.   I then looked into our ledgers but could not find a record of the sale until I located the original worksheet and found the clock had been purchased by an agent a George.P.Harris Scarfe & Co, 144 Coronation House, Lloyds Avenue, E.C. of London.  After further research it turns out that this was a buying house for Harris Scarfe which is a large Retail Business originated in Adelaide in South Australia.

Yalumba Winery is the oldest family owned winery in Australia being set up shortly after Gilletts in 1849 by a British migrant from Wareham, Dorset called Samual Smith. Yalumba is aboriginal for ‘all the land around’.  Smith and his son started planting the first vines by moonlight.  Samual later decided he needed more capital to raise the business of the ground and so headed for the goldfields where he managed to gain some much needed funds for the winery.

The order was for a No 1 Gillett & Johnston Timepiece clock with a 5ft opal Dial this was to be loaded onto a steamship in November 1907 for travel to Adelaide.  The cost of the clock was £39.00 and obviously this was a good investment as it seems to look exactly as it would of done when it was installed.

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