These are five parts of two sundials. The main parts are two identical metal casts of a square, flat sundial. 2019.ast.148.1 has some blue-green oxidization on the surface. 2019.ast.148.2 is paler in colour and lacks some definition.
The sundial pattern has a four-pointed star in the centre, with W, N and E marked. Around three edges of the sundial there are numerals from 12 (at the N mark) counting from 11 to 5 on one side, and up from 1 to 7 on the other, like the standard arrangement of a clock face. On the S side of the sundial the metal insert gives instructions “To Get Standard Time Add to Dial Time The Number of Minutes Given Below” and provides a chart for reference which is given in months.
There are also three indicator arrows (2019.ast.148.3-5) intended to be mounted to the centre of the dial, with the arrow pointed north.
Accession Number: 2019.ast.148.1-5
Alternative Name:
Primary Materials: Metal: Copper Alloy
On the metal insert: “TO GET STANDARD TIME ADD TO DIAL TIME THE NUMBER OF MINUTES GIVEN BELOW”
Length = 30.5, Width = 30.5, Height = 2.8
Sundials permit the use of the sun’s angle in the sky to tell the approximate time. The table on the sundial’s face provides correction information for calculating the correct time from the sundial. These prototypes were probably cast from the wooden cast that is catalogued as 2019.ast.147.
The Astronomy catalogue includes this information: “[S]undials are millennia-old in conception, and while long obsolete for research, they nevertheless found a place in the decorative scheme of observatories. Sundials symbolically represented the claim to a long cultural preoccupation with astronomy, to which the latest equipment is the culmination”
Excellent: 2019.ast.148.1 is darker in colour and has some blue-green oxidization across some of the surface, but is otherwise in excellent condition. 2019.ast.149.1-5 are in apparently perfect condition, with only a little discolouration and shiny areas where they may have been rubbed smooth by use or storage.
Associated Instruments: 2019.ast.147
Manufacturer: Locally made
Date of Manufacture: 1928-1935
These sundials appear to have been cast sometime between 1928 and the opening of the David Dunlap Observatory in 1935. As extras, they were stored at David Dunlap Observatory prior to its sale. Upon the sale of the observatory in 2009 they were moved, along with the other items in this collection, to the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics building at the St George Campus at the University of Toronto. They were stored there until 2017, when it was moved to a new storage location in McLennan Physical Laboratories.
These sundials are nearly identical to a sundial designed and manufactured for Jessie Donalda Dunlap in for installation at the Dunlap family summer estate, Don-Alda Farm. These examples lack the inscription “DON-ALDA FARM 1928” that appears on that sundial. These words are missing from an identical but slightly later sundial installed at David Dunlap Observatory; these examples may therefore be preliminary casts for the Observatory example.
The sundial was designed by Clarence A. Chant, is calibrated for the Toronto area, and was presented to Jessie Dunlap by Clarence A. Chant on May 30, 1928, although it was not installed at the Farm until approximately June, 1929. The sundial was intended to thank and recognise Dunlap and her family for her upcoming donation to fund the David Dunlap Observatory, then in the planning stage. Chant and Dunlap were involved in a search for a suitable location for the observatory around this time.
Chant wrote in his autobiography: “On Wednesday afternoon, May 30, I took a sun-dial over to 93 Highlands Ave. It had been made from a design of my own. On its face there was cast a table giving the correction, for each day of the year, to be applied to the dial reading in order to get Eastern Standard Time (for the neighbourhood of Toronto). Also there was cast on the face of the dial, DON-ALDA FARM 1928. Mrs. Dunlap was pleased with the dial, which however was not mounted on its pedestal until the next year.”
The Don-Alda Farm is now Donalda Golf Club, a private club in Don Mills, Toronto. The sundial inspired the name of club trophies and a magazine and features on the club’s crest. After sometime in storage, it is still installed at the club.
They were probably cast from the wooden mold catalogued as 2019.ast.147.
Chant, C.A. Autobiography (c. 1951) pg 807 (https://archive.org/details/clarenceaugustus00clar/page/807/mode/2up) [17-04-25]
Donalda Club, “The Original Sundial” (https://www.facebook.com/DonaldaClub/posts/the-original-sundial-ah-the-sundial-it-has-been-donalda-clubs-guiding-symbol-fro/3513417102043540/) [17-04-25]
“Mrs. Dunlap and Professor Chant At Don-Alda Farm, June 1929” (Photograph) The David Dunlap Observatory Scrapbook (1935) pg 8 (https://archive.org/details/ddobook00astr/page/n7/mode/2up) [17-04-25]
“Richmond Hill – Sundial 1063” Sundial Registry (https://www.sundials.org/index.php/sundial-registry/onedial/1063) [17-04-25]
Historical Notes: