Detail of a bronze sundial (without base), engraved by Raphael Clint, Sydney, c1840. 17(h) x 17cm(w). Photograph (c) Brenton McGeachie, Caroline Simpson Collection, Sydney Living Museums. L2005/19.
- CSL&RC
Raphael Clint sundial
A bronze sundial (without base) engraved by Raphael Clint in Sydney, c1840.
As time-telling devices sundials have an ancient history but, by the middle years of the 19th century, as clocks and pocket watches became more affordable and more reliable, the role of the sundial became increasingly one of ornament - though its presence in a garden could still serve as a reminder of the passing of time and brevity of life.
The influential English garden writer John Claudius Loudon stated in his Encyclopaedia of Cottage Farm and Villa Architecture and Furniture, first published in 1833, that ‘a sundial is one of the most agreeable and useful of architectural appendages, and in this country [England] is become venerable, as a piece of garden furniture.’ In the late 1830s and early 1840s Loudon’s readers in colonial New South Wales were able to follow his advice when the engraver Raphael Clint advertised in the Sydney press that he could provide ‘logarithmic sun dials for every ten miles of the colony.’ (The Colonist 26 January 1837) Within weeks he had refined his offer, advertising sundials ‘for any five miles of the territory’ and urging their particular utility for gentlemen ‘residing or having stations in the interior’. He could provide ready calculated sundials from his stock and could also compute sundials to any particular locality.
Clint is the best known of only a few makers of sundials in mid-19th century New South Wales and a number of his sundials survive, a few in situ and others in museum collections.
Clint sundial - side view
Raphael Clint (1797-1849), son of miniature painter and engraver George Clint, was born in Hertfordshire, England, and emigrated to Western Australia in 1829. He worked first as a surveyor before moving with his wife to Van Dieman's Land in 1832. By February 1835 Clint had resettled in Sydney and set up business as an engraver. Although he relied on assistants to carry out original drawing and printing, Clint's business produced a number of maps, charts and plans of Australasia, caricatures, intaglios, as well as designs and engravings for the first armorial bookplates in New South Wales. The business also engraved copper plaques for tombstones and silver for domestic use, and designed door plates and sundials. Clint had a poor relationship with some of his workers and competitors but enjoyed business success until the depression of the early 1840s. He may have returned to England during the period 1844 to 1846 but was back in business in Sydney in May 1847. However, later that year he was declared insolvent, and when he died two years later, he left his wife in penury unable to even cover his burial costs.
Sources:
N. Grey, 'Raphael Clint', Australian Dictionary of Biography Vol 1, 1966.
Joan Kerr (ed.), The Dictionary of Australian Artists 1780-1870, 1984.
Clint sundial - top view
This sundial has been engraved ‘R. Clint’ lower left and ‘Sydney’ lower right, Clint’s usual manner of making his mark, and has four holes ready for attaching the plate to a pedestal, but it is not engraved with the name of a particular house and/or owner like other known examples. These details were usually engraved by Clint in the semi-circle below the gnomen along with a statement of latitude.
A sundial made for ‘Archibald Mosman / St Leonards Lodge / North Shore’ is engraved ‘Latitude 33° 50’ S’. One made for the Australian Agricultural Company at Booral is marked with a latitude of 32° 30’ S while that made for A. W. Scott of Ash Island is marked with a latitude of 32° 52’ S. The sundial made for W P Faithfull of Springfield in south-western New South Wales has a latitude of 34° 54’ 30’ S.
Other known Clint sundials include one for the Reverend Thomas Sharpe of Roxburgh Cottage, Bathurst; Henry Edenborough of Wollogorong on the southern tablelands of NSW; one for Daniel Cohen of Port Macquarie and one for James Barker of Lindesay, Darling Point.
This anonymous sundial may have been used as a trade sample or display model.
Wotonga, Sydney
This photograph, taken around 1874, shows a sundial in the grounds in front of a house called Wotonga at Kirrbilli Point on Sydney’s north shore. The house, now known as Admiralty House and substantially altered, is the Sydney residence of the Governor-General of Australia. The sundial is dated to 1846 and no longer remains in situ in the grounds.
Wotonga was built in the 1840s for Lieutenant Colonel J G N Gibbes, Collector of Customs in the NSW colonial government. In 1851 he sold the property to a merchant named James Lindsay Travers and Travers in turn sold Wotonga in 1856 to Lieutenant Colonel George Barney, Surveyor General. The house had another change of ownership in 1860 and a number of tenants before its sale in 1874 to the Honourable Thomas Cadell, MLC. Cadell was the last private owner of the house before its purchase in February 1885 by the NSW government as the residence for the Imperial Navy's representative in Australia.
Lindesay, 1914
Lindesay, in the Sydney suburb of Darling Point, is one of only a few houses with an original Raphael Clint sundial remaining in situ. The house was built in 1834 for public servant, Campbell Drummond Riddell. It was the first house constructed in Darling Point and the first to be built in New South Wales in the Gothic-revival style. It is currently owned and managed by the National Trust of Australia (NSW).
The sundial relates to the third owner of the property, a merchant named James Barker who owned the property from 1839 until 1841. Shown here on a plinth in the foreground of the photograph, it is engraved with Barker’s name, the name of the house and the latitude: 33° 51’ S.
The photograph was taken in 1914 when the property was owned by a manufacturer named Ernest Wunderlich. He purchased the property in November 1913 and subdivided the estate before selling the house to Dr Edward Johnstone Jenkins in July 1914.
The grounds at Lindesay
The rear grounds of Lindesay with the Raphael Clint sundial and plinth at almost the furthest point of the garden and Sydney Harbour in the background. This photograph was one of a set of pictures of Lindesay commissioned by manufacturer Ernest Wunderlich after his purchase of the property in November 1913 and prior to his subdivision of the estate in July 1914.
About the Author
