Illinois' celebrated tower clock is history in motion

Illinois’ very own tower clock, which can be found on the first floor of the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, was recently featured in the Kewanee Star Courier.

Chief among the students who helped design and build the clock was Kewanee native and U of I engineering alumnus Frederick Francis. The clock, which was presented to the university as a gift from Francis’ class of 1878, originally presided in a tower atop University Hall. When the Hall was demolished, the clock moved to the Illini Union, only to be later refurbished by engineering students. The clock is now housed in MEL in a special open-face case that allows viewers to witness the motion of its gears.

The clock is indeed a sight to see, with six stages of gear reduction and a 110-pound pendulum that measures over nine feet in length. Energy from the pendulum’s motion is conserved using a single-legged gravity escapement, meaning that once the pendulum has been set in motion, a mechanical linkage system stores and releases energy to drive the clock’s hands.

The clock was constructed in the University’s workshop and cost the class of 1878 $300 to create. It presided from the University Hall tower until the Hall was demolished in 1938, at which time the clock was placed in storage until the completion of the Illini Union three years later. However, the clock’s drum mechanism was unfortunately lost during the construction period, meaning that it was out of commission when installed in the Union tower. Over time, electric motors were implemented to drive the gears and face, meaning that the bulk of its mechanical assembly sat unused.

The clock remained in this state until the late 1980s, when it was discovered by Professor Emeritus Bruce Hannon (Geography and Geographic Information Science). Hannon had heard about the clock from an Illini Union mechanic and wanted to see it restored.

“Help preserve a piece of engineering history,” Hannon wrote in a 1988 advertisement printed in the student newsletter North of Green. “It seems fitting to have engineering students fix the clock that was originally built by engineering students.”

Hannon received more than a dozen responses and was able to form the 1878 Clock Restoration Committee, which received $1,000 from then-Dean of Engineering Mac Van Valkenburg. The team secured space in the University Foundry for their project and began disassembling and cleaning the clock that summer. The project proved to be extensive and complex, as several parts had to be remade and others were completely missing from the clock. Hannon and his students used photos from the archives, as well as one of Fred Francis’ original plans, to decipher the missing pieces.

“We are preserving kinetic art,” Hannon said at the time. “To a mechanical engineer, this is a piece of art.” He credits Mike Westjohn, then an instrument maker for the university, with skillfully machining critical components. He also recognizes liberal arts alumna Sharon Pick (then Rossi; BALAS ’89), who helped raise $20,000 to put toward the installation and care of the finished clock.

The restoration project was completed in 1989, allowing Pick’s class to present the clock as their gift. “The restoration of the clock is also special because the seniors stopped giving class gifts in 1967,” Pick explained at the time. “This is the first time in 21 years that everyone can appreciate the senior gift.”

A few years later, the clock won second place as an exhibit in the Engineering Open House. Its prominence was made known to MechSE alumni including the Rosenthal family, who made a significant contribution toward giving it a permanent home in MEL.

“The clock is the only piece of mechanical engineering history, made by mechanical engineers, still in operation,” Hannon said. “The clock reminds visitors, faculty, and students that we honor the past excellent work of our university ancestors.”

Hannon has led walking tours around campus that showcase not only the tower clock, but seven other historical clocks as well, including an 1850s piece owned by Gregor Mendel that now lives in the archives room of the Main Library.

“This is an important message,” Hannon remarked of restoring, maintaining, and showcasing historical pieces.  “It tells us all that in honoring this work of the past, we will also honor the important accomplishments of current students and faculty.”