City re-activates Stabroek Market clock
Stabroek News
July 3, 2004

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The Stabroek Market clock has been activated.

According to a release from the Mayor and City Council (M&CC), the clock is now fully operational after the City Engineer's Department completed repairs and set the chime in order two weeks ago.

Museum expert attached to the Smithsonian Institution, David Shayt, who repaired the Stabroek Market clock in 1990, had said last year that the four dials (faces) of the Stabroek Market clock could be made to tell the right time by either using the original machine or a new electronic system.

He said the clock needed "very serious servicing," since many of the parts were worn out and a lot of rust had gathered on them.

It was felt then that about six months of constant work would get it back to its proper working condition.

The expert had said that after the clock was repaired it was not properly serviced and because of where it sat, exposed to the elements, it suffered "from the wonderful Guyana weather, the lovely onshore wet [and] salty breeze [which] attacked the steel and made it rusty."

He said the clock really needed to be kept in a cupboard and the authorities should build a new cupboard which would protect it from the elements.

The Stabroek Market clock was installed at the time the market was opened in November, 1881.

It has four dials and one bell, is the oldest Municipal Georgetown Public clock and is called the Stabroek Howard clock, the release said.