Surviving a Century

Historic Campus Sundial Outlasts 100 Years of Moves and Misfortune

The Jessop sundial sits at the north end of SDSU's Mediterranean Garden.

At the north end of the Mediterranean Garden adjacent to the Old Quad sits a bronze sundial atop a plinth fashioned from simple Mexican stone. Placed unobtrusively beside a walkway separating two benches, it barely draws occasional glances from preoccupied passersby.  

Not to be confused with its more ostentatious relative, the Aztec sundial in front of Hepner Hall at the historic center of campus, this timepiece is infrequently photographed.  When plans are made to “meet at the sundial,” it is not the intended location.

But the history of the Jessop sundial, as it is known by some, belies its unassuming appearance.  This simple object – or some incarnation of it – has been a part of San Diego State longer than any other statue or structure on campus except the Normal School bricks and cornerstone used in the Scripps Cottage barbecue.  Donated to the San Diego Normal School by the graduating class of 1911, the sundial was crafted by Joseph Jessop, an English immigrant who had founded a local family jewelry company in 1892.   

The historic Jessop's Street Clock was first set in motion in 1907. (Jessop Jewelers photo)

"He was a watchmaker by trade and he was fascinated by sundials,” explains Joseph Jessop’s great-grandson, James Jessop (’74). “One of the things that the Jessop family did was to produce a sundial which was sold into various homes and various gardens around San Diego as well as in Balboa Park."

In the early 20th century, Joseph Jessop was celebrated for his craftsmanship.  His spectacular Jessop’s Street Clock has been a San Diego icon for more than a century.

“It's a one-of-a-kind,” says James Jessop. “There's nothing else like that in the entire world.”


So on June 13, 1911, San Diego State Normal School's graduating seniors presented their class gift to the institution - the brass sundial made by J. Jessop & Sons. An account in the school’s yearbook, White and Gold, gives this description:

Joseph Jessop (1851 - 1932) in Jessop family photo.

“The place chosen for the gift is just within the circular lawn directly in front of the main entrance (at Park and El Cajon boulevards). The pedestal is a miniature Doric column… supporting a square plinth upon which rests the dial itself, bearing the legend, "Lux me regit et lux est umbra Dei." (Light rules me and light is the shadow of God.) The only wish of the senior class is that this gift shall be a source of inspiration and pleasure to the school for years to come.”

In the coming years, however, the sundial was left behind when the school, which had been renamed State Teachers College, moved in 1931 to its current location on Montezuma Mesa.

When Howard O. Welty, a retired Oakland high school principal and member of the class of 1911 visited campus, he noted that the sundial had disappeared.

Familiar with the old Normal School building from his work as a student janitor, Welty found the sundial and its broken stylus in a basement area.  No one knew how it had been damaged.  Welty took the pieces home and some years later had the sundial repaired at an Oakland foundry.

According to a letter by Howard Welty, Jr., his aging father passed the timepiece along to him, so he mounted it on a stump in the yard of his La Mesa home for several years. In 1990, Howard O. Welty, Jr. offered the sundial to the Special Collections Department of San Diego State's Love Library.

Mark Hatay stands by the sundial he restored after it was stolen.

On January 28, 1998, the sundial once again found itself on display as part of San Diego State’s Mediterranean Garden located just east of the Old Quad.  Championed by SDSU professor Mike Simpson and Professor Emeritus Pat Abbott, the garden provides a serene haven from the campus hustle and bustle.

At the sundial’s rededication event, former College of Sciences dean, Donald Short, said the sundial would “remind students of SDSU’s rich history.”  The reminder lasted less than two weeks.

On February 10, 1998, a local newspaper reported the bronze sundial had been stolen and its pedestal left “chipped and barren - the handiwork of a power drill-bearing thief in the night.”   

“They broke the plinth in the process and as far as I know it hasn't shown up since then,” says Mark Hatay, a physics department equipment technician. “I don't know if anybody's still really looking (for the sundial) or not."

Hatay, who has worked on campus for more than three decades, says he was incensed by the theft.

“Pat Abbot and Mike Simpson were trying to do something nice for the campus,” he explains. “They wanted to have this nice place where people could go and then somebody kind of destroys it – I wanted to make a contribution to get the project back on track."

Jessop Shop circa 1905. Joseph Jessop is standing in the back of the shop. It is in this shop the famous Jessop's clock was produced. (San Diego Historical Society photo)

So Hatay began studying the sundial with the intent of restoring it to the garden.  He met with James Jessop to examine family photos of Joseph Jessop’s original works and techniques.

“I kind of looked at it and said, 'You know what?  I could make this. I could reproduce this for them,'” Hatay recalls. “And so it kind of went from there.”

Channeling Joseph Jessop, Hatay worked nights and weekends around his SDSU responsibilities for more than two months to recreate the historic sundial.

"That was probably the coolest part of it,” he remembers. “Joseph Jessop was obviously a very significant figure in the jewelry business here in San Diego, so it was actually a great honor for me to have my name next to his.  I put my name on the dial 'as reproduced by' and so my name is next to his."

Mark Hatay's reproduction of SDSU's 1911 Jessop sundial.

Hatay says he felt compelled to restore the antique timepiece to honor the work of campus colleagues and to repair an important broken bridge to the university’s past.

"I feel I had helped undo a wrong and showed some respect to Pat's and Mike's work that they were doing trying to keep this campus nice," he says. “And while the restored sundial isn’t part of the original, the spirit goes back, basically.  I mean, this whole thing has become part of its history - the fact that it was stolen and reproduced is being documented as what happened here.  

“I kind of hope that one day it will show up somewhere or that maybe somebody will recognize it - find it at a garage sale or something.”  

Until that time, a representation of the original Jessop sundial remains on campus as it has, off and on, for a century.  With the concern and good work of the Jessops, Weltys and Hatays of the world, perhaps it will remain, in the words of the 1911 Gold and White yearbook, “a source of inspiration and pleasure to the school for years to come.”