Noon Gun
Encyclopedia
Time signal
A time signal is a visible, audible, mechanical, or electronic signal used as a reference to determine the time of day.-Audible and visible time signals:...
in Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
since 1806. The gun is situated on Signal Hill
Signal Hill (Cape Town)
Signal Hill aka Lion's Rump, is a landmark flat-topped hill located in Cape Town, next to Lion's Head and Table Mountain.The hill is also known as "The Lion's Flank", but this term is obsolete...
, close to the centre of the city.
History
The settlement at the Cape of Good HopeCape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
was founded by the Dutch in 1652 and the signal guns were originally part of the regular artillery at the Imhoff Battery at the Castle
Castle of Good Hope
The Castle of Good Hope is a star fort which was built on the original coastline of Table Bay and now, because of land reclamation, lies nearer to the Cape Town city centre in South Africa.-History:...
in Cape Town. In 1795 during the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, Britain took the Cape Colony
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...
from the Dutch East India Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
((De) Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) in Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
). The VOC transferred its territories and claims to the Batavian Republic
Batavian Republic
The Batavian Republic was the successor of the Republic of the United Netherlands. It was proclaimed on January 19, 1795, and ended on June 5, 1806, with the accession of Louis Bonaparte to the throne of the Kingdom of Holland....
in 1798 and ceased to exist in 1799. The British handed the Cape Colony back to the Batavian Republic in 1803. However, in 1806 the Cape was occupied again by the British after the Battle of Blaauwberg
Battle of Blaauwberg
The Battle of Blaauwberg, also known as the Battle of Cape Town, fought near Cape Town on 8 January 1806, was a small but significant military engagement. It established British rule in South Africa, which was to have many ramifications during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries...
. Thereafter the British controlled the Cape continuously until it became a part of the independent Union of South Africa
Union of South Africa
The Union of South Africa is the historic predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into being on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the previously separate colonies of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal and the Orange Free State...
in 1910. Shortly after the English took over, the two Dutch guns were removed from the Imoff Battery and placed in town as signal guns. The Castle received the latest English 18 pounders. Because the very loud report of the cannons upset people nearby, the guns were eventually moved from the environs of the city itself to the somewhat more remote Lion Battery on Signal Hill
Signal Hill (Cape Town)
Signal Hill aka Lion's Rump, is a landmark flat-topped hill located in Cape Town, next to Lion's Head and Table Mountain.The hill is also known as "The Lion's Flank", but this term is obsolete...
at 33°54′54.6"S 18°24′41.85"E. The first signal fired from there was on the 4 August 1902.
Sailing ships were slow by modern standards and could not store fresh food for long periods, so the provisioning of vessels was one of the major commercial functions at Cape Town in those olden days. Indeed, the city was widely renowned as "The Tavern of the Seas". There were no telephones or telegraphs before the latter half of the 19th century and the sound of the guns travelled much faster than a dispatch rider on a horse. The guns were therefore originally used to announce the arrival of a ship, perhaps requiring provisions for the next leg of its journey, to residents living in the interior. The use of the guns to indicate that a ship was in port was discontinued when more modern means of communication were developed somewhat more than a hundred years ago.
Time signalling
In addition to the aforementioned signalling duties, the guns have had the task of firing a time signal since 1806. According to local tradition, the initial purpose of the gun was to allow ships in port to check the accuracy of their marine chronometerMarine chronometer
A marine chronometer is a clock that is precise and accurate enough to be used as a portable time standard; it can therefore be used to determine longitude by means of celestial navigation...
s (a precision instrument used aboard ships to help calculate longitude
Longitude
Longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position of a point on the Earth's surface. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds, and denoted by the Greek letter lambda ....
). The gun report might be too inaccurate for ships several kilometers away if they did not correctly compensate for the relatively slow speed of sound
Speed of sound
The speed of sound is the distance travelled during a unit of time by a sound wave propagating through an elastic medium. In dry air at , the speed of sound is . This is , or about one kilometer in three seconds or approximately one mile in five seconds....
.
A time ball
Time ball
A time ball is a large painted wooden or metal ball that drops at a predetermined time, principally to enable sailors to check their marine chronometers from their boats offshore...
on Signal Hill was used to relay time from the Cape Town Observatory, whose time ball was not visible from all parts of the bay. At precisely 1:30pm Cape Mean Time, the ball would be dropped at the Observatory – an observer on Signal Hill would then drop that more prominent ball too. When setting their chronometers, mariners adjusted their observation of the time ball on Signal Hill by a second to allow for the relay from the observatory.
After the advent of the galvanic telegraph, it became possible to trigger a gun remotely and since 1864 the Noon Gun has been fired from the master clock
Clock
A clock is an instrument used to indicate, keep, and co-ordinate time. The word clock is derived ultimately from the Celtic words clagan and clocca meaning "bell". A silent instrument missing such a mechanism has traditionally been known as a timepiece...
of the oldest timekeeper in the country, the South African Astronomical Observatory
South African Astronomical Observatory
South African Astronomical Observatory is the national center for optical and infrared astronomy in South Africa. It was established in 1972. The observatory is run by the National Research Foundation of South Africa. The facility's function is to conduct research in astronomy and astrophysics...
. One day in June 1895 the gun fired at 10:30 rather than 12:00 when a spider interfered with the relay used to remotely fire the gun.
The original guns – 18-pounder, smoothbore
Smoothbore
A smoothbore weapon is one which has a barrel without rifling. Smoothbores range from handheld firearms to powerful tank guns and large artillery mortars.-History of firearms and rifling:...
muzzle-loaders – are still in use today. The ritual represents one of Cape Town's oldest living traditions. These are the oldest guns in daily use in the world. They fire every day at 12 noon
Noon
Noon is usually defined as 12 o'clock in the daytime. The word noon is also used informally to mean midday regarding the location of the sun not the middle of a persons day. Although this is a time around the middle of the day when people in many countries take a lunch break...
sharp, except Sundays and public holidays, and are maintained by the South African Navy
South African Navy
The South African Navy is the navy of the Republic of South Africa.-Formation:The South African Navy can trace its official origins back to the SA Naval Service, which was established on 1 April 1922....
. There have been few remarkable incidents involving the guns over the centuries. Perhaps the most notable one occurred many decades ago, in the days when horse-drawn traffic was commonplace. The rammer used to tamp the charge into the muzzle was inadvertently left in the bore of the cannon
Cannon
A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...
and when the gun fired the rammer flew down into the city and killed a horse. On Friday January 7, 2005, both the main gun and backup gun failed to fire owing to a technical difficulty. This was the first time in 200 years that the noon gun had not fired as scheduled.
Other guns
Other guns used for signalling time around the world can be found in:- Santiago de Chile has a Noon Gun, fired every day on top of the Cerro Santa LucíaCerro Santa LucíaSanta Lucía Hill is a small hill in the centre of Santiago, Chile. It borders on Alameda del Libertador Bernardo O'Higgins in the south, Santa Lucía Street in the west and Victoria Subercaseaux on the east. An adjacent metro station is named for it. The hill has an altitude of 629 m and a height...
. - Hong KongHong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
Noonday Gun - Halifax, Nova Scotia has a noon gun fired daily from Citadel Hill
- Ottawa, Ontario, Canada's capital has a cannon fired daily at noon from Nepean Point
- EdinburghEdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
(the One O'Clock Gun) - RomeRomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, where a gun called Michelle is fired from the Janiculum hill. - VancouverVancouverVancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
(the Nine O'Clock Gun9 O'Clock GunThe 9 O'Clock Gun is a cannon located in Vancouver, British Columbia that is shot every night at 21:00 PT. The crests of King George III and Henry Phipps, 1st Earl of Mulgrave, Master-General of the Ordnance at the time the cannon was cast, are on the barrel.The gun is a 12-pound muzzle-loaded...
) - St. Petersburg, RussiaRussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
- Nice, France
- ZagrebZagrebZagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
, CroatiaCroatiaCroatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
(Grič cannonGric cannonThe Grič cannon is one of the Zagreb landmarks. Since 1 January 1877 the cannon is fired from the Lotrščak Tower on Grič to mark midday. The cannon was to give the sign for exact noon for the bell-ringers of the city's churches.-References:*...
, fired for more than a century at noon from Lotrščak TowerLotrščak TowerThe Lotrščak Tower is a fortified tower located in Zagreb, Croatia, in old part of town called Gradec or Gornji grad . The tower, which dates to the 13th century, was built to guard the southern gate of the Gradec town wall...
) - St. John's, Newfoundland also has a noon gun, which is fired from Signal Hill, located in Newfoundland, Canada
- SydneySydneySydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
has a one o'clock gun fired daily from Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour.