Rajabai Clock Tower

Rajabai Clock Tower

Rajabai Clock Tower

Rajabai Clock Tower

Rajabai Clock Tower

Rajabai Clock Tower

The Rajabai Tower, dedicated to Premchand Roychand’s mother took 9 years to complete. Bombay University’s Clock Tower is 280 feet high and consists of 7 storeys. Soaring 120 feet above its surrouding buildings, the Rajabai Tower was, for a while, the tallest structure in the city.

The sculptures on its 4 sides represent 24 ‘castes’ of Western India, and within niches or sit under canopies of crocketed pinnacle forms of various neo-Gothic designs, which are exquisitely sculpted from Porbunder Stone and well proportioned for their site. Forming decorative pinnacles on the top of the tower, the canopies support the buttresses holding the octagonal crocketed lantern that terminates the composition.

The Tower’s 4-sided clock became operational in February 1880, although the rest of the structure was completed three years earlier.

The fourth floor of the tower contains the clock’s mechanism. The Opal glass dials, which display the time, are 12 feet 6 inches in diameter, and can be illuminated at night, originally by glass jets placed behind them. The corner balconies below the dials were intended as viewing points. Lund and Blockley designed the works and carillons, programmed to play sixteen different tunes. John Taylor and Co., Leicestershire, manufactured the sixteen bells, the largest werighing 3 tonnes. The bell frame, designed by General Hyde of the Railway Department, was made by Westwood Bailey and Co. www.rajabaitowerrestoration.com (site down)
The Rajabai Clock Tower in the University of Bombay, named after Premchand Roychands mother, was built from a donation by him, as was the library.

Premchand Roychands lost all his money in the Backbay reclamation scheme, and others equally ill-advised ventures. However, he managed to rebuild his fortune, though on a more modest scale. theory.tifr.res.in

The Tower facade features eight-feet high figures in Porebunder stone, representing the communities and costumes of western India. Carvings were done by students of the JJ School of Art under the supervision of John Lockwood Kipling. [1]

Earlier records also indicate that under J.L.Kipling, the students had worked on the University Buildings designed by Sir Gilbert Scott. [2]