Historic Jessop's street clock getting a permanent home in Balboa Park

May 25, 2023

Jessop’s clock, a downtown fixture for more than a century, is moving to a new permanent home in Balboa Park, under an agreement between the Jessop family and the San Diego History Center.

“I can’t think of a better place for the clock, the family or the city than to have it at the History Center,” said Jim Jessop, a fourth-generation member of the jewelry store family, who’s watched over the clock for decades. Family members approved the plan earlier this week.

The History Center in the park’s Casa de Balboa plans to make the 22-foot timepiece a centerpiece of the museum’s new permanent exhibit by the organization’s 100th birthday in 2028.

“This is the right time and we are the right place,” said the center’s board chair, John Morrell.

Designed and commissioned by businessman Joseph Jessop to stand outside his store at Broadway and Fifth Avenue, the clock was on view from 1908 to 2019, when it was moved into storage from its last location within Horton Plaza shopping center.

Jessop’s clock has kept time for the city — through war and peace, from horse-and-buggy days to the space age.

The Jessop family is donating the clock to the museum and assembling a “Friends of the Jessop’s Clock” support group.

The clock, currently housed in eight wooden crates at a storage site in Kearny Mesa, will move to the History Center and undergo restoration before it is reassembled and put on display once the museum exhibit is completed.

Fundraising is already under way and Paul Smith, 60, the clock’s current curator, is ready to take make the necessary fixes. He’s training his 30-year-old son, Garrett, to take his place in the future.

“There are a lot of cosmetic things that Jim and the family want,” Smith added. “They want to make this thing sparkle.”

The clock is insured for $1 million, but if disaster strikes, Jessop doesn’t think there’s the knowledge or craftsmanship to build a replica.

“It is a piece of history, something that can’t be reproduced today,” he said. “I can think of very few things in San Diego that people have admired as long as the Jessop’s clock.”

Joseph Jessop, Jim Jessop’s English-born great-grandfather, was said to have been inspired to build such a clock while traveling in Europe before moving to San Diego in 1890.

Street or post-clocks gained popularity starting in the mid-19th century and continue to be installed on street corners and in commercial establishments today. They’re oversized electric gadgets that tell time and promote businesses.

But Jessop’s clock was a handmade marvel with 300 moving parts: 17 faces, 17 jewels and a collection of dials, weights, gears, an escapement mechanism and a pendulum.

By 1905 Jessop had designed the clock and hired Claude D. Ledger, a recent graduate of the Elgin Watch School, to build it.

The clock movement was shipped to the California State Fair in Sacramento in 1907, where it won a gold medal. The finished piece was ticking away in front of the store at 952 Fifth Ave. in April 1908.

“(It) will be the talk of travelers to and from all parts of the world and will prove a good advertisement for San Diego,” The San Diego Union predicted at its unveiling.

The clock’s four faces show local time, but one also includes 12 small dials showing the approximate time elsewhere: New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Milan, St. Petersburg, Calcutta, Cape Town, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Melbourne and Mexico City. Separate dials also indicate the day, date and month. Manual adjustments are needed to account for the shift to and from local daylight saving time and the varied number of days in a month.

The precious jewels, many from the Jessop mine in Mesa Grande, were used as bushings, just as they are in many manual watches to reduce wear and tear. Chimes were planned but never installed.

And one addition will make a return — a tiny bear that a child at the state fair jammed into one of the rings so it could take a “ride” as the pendulum moved back and forth. But he couldn’t remove the bear and it’s remained in the clock ever since. Jessop said it’s in a safe deposit box for the time being.

“Everybody who sees the clock asks where’s the bear,” he said. “It’s a bit of ‘Where’s Waldo?’”

Also on display will be a replica of the 1907 medal, the original of which disappeared as did a bronze replacement.

The clock moved with the store south of Broadway to 1041 Fifth in 1927 and to the Horton Plaza shopping center outside a new Jessop store in 1985.

Over the last 10 years, Jim Jessop said he considered several places to reinstall the clock, including at the foot of the Gaslamp Quarter or Broadway or in the San Diego Zoo.

But the History Center won the nod, partly at the urging of late board chair Hal Sadler. His firm, Tucker Sadler Architects, is overseeing the museum’s reconfiguration.

“Clocks around the world — think of Big Ben — signify history, the future, the present,” said Greg Mueller, CEO and principal architect, even if most people rely on digital watches and cellphones to tell time. “Clocks will always stand the test of time, marking our life and what we do.”

The clock will be located within a three-story exhibit around a new winding staircase that will include a digital display of San Diego history and current events.

Jessop said the clock will be moved shortly to a secure location in the History Center. Restoration can proceed once funds are available, but it is not yet clear when the clock will be put on public display.

The History Center’s executive director, Bill Lawrence, said the goal for completing the museum’s permanent exhibit is 2028, the 100th anniversary of the San Diego Historical Society, the organization’s original name.

• It stopped when the clock maker died in 1935.

• An earthquake once brought the pendulum to a halt.

• An SDG&E official who passed the store daily told Joseph Jessop that the daily noon and 5 p.m. whistles at the company’s downtown power plant were synchronized to Jessop’s clock. “Well, we set the clock by the whistle,” Jessop replied.

• In 1983 Queen Elizabeth II inquired about the clock when she docked in San Diego and learned that the Jessops were originally from England.