![]() On the river ships’ sirens blew while on the ground several verses of the National Anthem were sung. On turning the lever, Mr Lewis said ‘In the name of God I turn on this lever’ before his suggestion that they be known as he Great George Liver Clocks was greeted with warm applause. It was the Royal Liver Chairman Mark Lewis who started them off, telling the VIPs gathered that Liverpool had always been loyal to kings and queens and it was only right that the largest electrical timepieces in the world should be started at the time His Majesty was crowned. The clocks were started on 22nd June 1911 at 1.40pm, the precise time George V was crowned. The huge clock faces, whose hands alone weighed 5cwts, were then hoisted up to the towers in May 1911 in readiness for the big switch on, which would see the clocks being controlled electronically from the Greenwich Observatory. They each consisted of 27 sections Before installation, forty Royal Liver executives and civic dignitaries held a special dinner, with one of the clock faces used as a dining table. The clocks were made by Gent & Co of Leicester, whose electric timepieces were on display in railway stations all over the world. The four clocks were easy enough to see, as their diameter of seven and a half metres made them the largest clock faces in the country, bigger than those on Big Ben in London, which are 6.9 metres. ![]() The two clock towers were the crowning point of the building,taking it to over 300 feet in height and allowing sailors from all over the River Mersey to see what time it was. The architect was Walter Aubrey Thomas and it was one of the first major structures in the world to be built of reinforced concrete, a concept that was used for many of the skyscrapers of New York and Chicago. The foundation stone was laid in May of that year and it took just three years to build. With over 6,000 employees, the Royal Liver Assurance Company were in need of larger premises and commissioned the building of a new office block at George’s Dock in 1908. They also contain some other superlatives, firsts and oddities, including being used as a dining table. The clocks in the famous Royal Liver Building are the biggest in the United Kingdom, despite being over 100 years old.
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