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The sterling silver Centenary of Melbourne Birthday Clock Cake, James W. Steeth & Son, 1934

in sterling silver and silver gilt featuring five tiers with candles, kangaroo and emu emblems, a clock mechanism with an enamel dial with hour markings reading BIRTHDAY CAKE, and featuring the female figures of Peace and Prosperity and gold boomerang hands, with engraved plaque to the ebonised base CENTENARY OF MELBOURNE 1834-1934, the first tier featuring a gilt map of Victoria and the wording SUPPLIED BY THE MYER EMPORIUM LTD. MELBOURNE, and engraved verso, J W STEETH & SON, MAKERS, ARCO HOUSE MELBOURNE, each tier and and various components marked sterling
46cm high, 33cm diameter (ebonised base)
4.5kg silver weight (approx)

The Centenary of Melbourne Birthday Cake Clock, 1934
In 1934-35 Melbourne marked its centenary year with great aplomb with John Batman's much lauded 1835 diary entry: ‘This will be the place for a village', providing the springboard for nearly a year of events and pageantry. Victoria and Melbourne, along with the rest of the country, was reeling from the devastating effects of the Great Depression, (in 1933 one in three breadwinners was unemployed), but the appointed Centenary Celebrations Council clearly relished presenting Melbourne as a city of growth, prosperity and modernity. Some 300 centenary events ran from October 1934 to June 1935 including a Royal tour by Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester whose speech to formally open the Centenary firmly cemented ties between Victoria's settlement and the founding of Melbourne with Empire; an International Centenary Air Race sponsored by Macpherson Robertson, of chocolate making renown; a splendid Centenary People's Fair, ‘Joyland', on Batman Avenue on the banks of the Yarra; a gigantic birthday cake, and; the Centenary All-Australian Exhibition, events showcasing the endeavour, ‘happiness' and progress of the city of one million people.

The Centenary Birthday cake was a spectacle. A fruit cake of five tiers, weighing an extraordinary 10 tons and comprising 36 000 eggs, 1½ tons each of sugar and butter, 4 ½ tons of mixed fruit and other ‘all Australian' ingredients it was enthusiastically reported as the world's largest cake ever made, baked by confectioner George Rath, of the Astoria café in Swanston Street. Contemporary accounts note that following the official cutting of the cake, some 250 000 slices were wrapped, decoratively tinned and sold for one shilling to benefit various charities. For a lucky few, a gold sovereign was included with 100 of the packages.

The cake was displayed in ‘The Birthday Cake Building', unsurprisingly a multi-tiered cake shaped pavilion several storeys high in ‘Joyland', which also offered a refreshment hall and a Dance Palais for patrons. The five tiers of the Centenary cake were replete with symbolism. A booklet published for the People's Fair, ‘Souvenir of Victoria's Centenary Birthday cake', loosely and fancifully chronicled the history of the State of Victoria and Melbourne, ‘as told by the cake'. Fair attendees were encouraged to enter the Cake Competition, collecting coupons to put into their souvenir booklets in the hope of winning a monetary prize. First prize, valued at 500 pounds, was a solid silver Birthday Cake Clock replicating the splendid edible centenary cake.

We know two versions of the cake exist, one small and one large. Both Birthday Cake Clocks, commissioned and supplied by the Myer Emporium, were fabricated by James Steeth and Son, notable Melbourne silversmiths and makers of the Melbourne Cup. The small mantel-piece sized cake clock, reputedly the competition first prize and apparently unclaimed, now resides in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, acquired in 1987.

At nearly twice the size of the NGV artefact, we can postulate that the impressive five tier Cake Clock, now presented by Gibson's, was the model reportedly on public display during the centenary celebrations.

But how this extraordinary Centenary Birthday Cake Clock, with kangaroo and emu, imaginative depiction of the treaty between Batman and indigenous peoples, candles, clock mechanism with the dial depicting the maidens of Peace and Prosperity, ended up on a far North Queensland property, ‘out the back of nowhere' in an old milk crate in a shed, is a mystery. Reputedly sold by Leonard Joel in 1983 it disappeared into obscurity and was discovered only late last year. This marvellous confection, a truly important piece of Melbourne history and an artefact of its time, has kept its secrets well in the intervening years, and now rightly deserves its place in a public collection.

Dennice Collett

  • Condition: In very good condition throughout, with nine candles absent, clock with an eight day movement is ticking and hands moving, but the clock has not be serviced or timed.

    * All statements by Gibson’s in the catalogue entry for the property or in the condition report, or made orally or in writing elsewhere, are statements of opinion and are not to be relied upon as statements of fact. Such statements do not constitute a representation, warranty or assumption of liability by Gibson’s of any kind. References in the catalogue entry to the condition report to damage or restoration are for guidance only and should be evaluated by personal inspection by the bidder or a knowledgeable representative. The absence of such a reference does not imply that an item is free from defects or restoration, nor does a reference to particular defects imply the absence of any others. Estimates of the selling price should not be relied on as a statement that this is the price at which the item will sell or its value for any other purpose. Neither Gibson’s nor The Seller is responsible for any errors or omissions in the catalogue or any supplemental material.

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July 9, 2023 11:00 AM AEST
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