The clock is a French clock although the case is a local teak case. It is approximately 3 metres high. It is a 7 day clock, to be wound up manually by a special key and the clock is powered by two weights. The case is good but the clock has not been serviced since the 1970s, and needs checking, oiling etc. as it has travelled a lot in its lifetime. The original owner that we know was Mr Edwin John Tessensohn who was born in Malacca in 1855 and who came to Singapore in or around 1870. His mother Eliza, was the grandaughter, of Adrian Koek the last acting Dutch Governor of Malacca at the time of the Treaty of London sometimes called the Anglo Dutch Treaty, 1824,which inter alia gave Malacca to the British in return for Bencoolen. She came to live with her son in Singapore sometime in the 1870s or '80s.EJ Tessensohn became a prominent member of the then Eurasian Community and was a founder of the Eurasian Literary Association circa 1918, that subsequently became the Singapore Recreation Club on the Padang. He was active in church (RC) and commumity affairs and was appointed in those Colonial times as a Municipal Councillor. He died in 1926 and the present Tessensohn Road was named after him a year later. He was commemorated in the issue of stamps a few years ago depicting the early pioneers of Singapore.
