Gaunt's Time had a meaning for blossoming colonial Victoria akin to that of Greenwich Time for those "back home" in England. But to remember Thomas Gaunt only as a clock maker is to do him a great disservice, for he was well known throughout the colonies - and the greater western world - as a maker of fine scientific instruments, jewellery and precious ware. His contribution to the daily lives of the colonists through his public clocks, however, remains the way by which he is most remembered and revered with many of his clocks still faithfully displaying Gaunt's Time almost 150 years later. An understanding of the man and his life helps explain why...