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 James Stewart — Whitesmith — Invercargill, New Zealand Posted by:  Dunbar Loop
S 46° 24.458 E 168° 23.678
59G E 299750 N 4857361
A local whitesmith, who made approximately 200 sundials, created this headstone for his family plot that functions as a sundial as well
Waymark Code: WM75X9
Location: South Island, New Zealand
Date Posted: 09/06/2009
Views: 8
From Wikipedia: A whitesmith is a person who works with "white" or light-colored metals such as tin and pewter. While blacksmiths work mostly with hot metal, whitesmiths do the majority of their work on cold metal (although they might use a forge to shape their raw materials).
When Sophia Rose Stewart died in 1916 she was buried in the family plot at Invercargill's Eastern Cemetery. The following year her son, James Harry Stewart, passed away. At this time Sophia's husband, James Stewart, built this headstone, which also a sundial. James Sr. was an accomplished whitesmith who created complex keys and made approximately 200 sundials.
As Micheal Fellows wrote in The Southland Times:
Though Stewart's first sundial had been entirely unprepossessing his father had instructed him to drive a nail into a brick wall and mark where the sun's shadow fell at various times of the day the Times reporter departed Bowmont St that day, his head orbited by a veritable solar system of information on sundials ranging from horizontal or vertical to the armillary sphere, cylindrical, cruciform, polygonal, hemispherical, universal, portable, equatorial, tetrahedron, solar-chronometer, sun-clock, solhorometer and others.
On one level Mr Stewart was a whitesmith, a crafter of low-melting alloys, specialising in decorative or finely finished work. On another he was seized by the mathematical and scientific disciplines of following the sun's passage, and converting sun time into real time. But more than that he also spoke of sundials in terms of charm, sentiment, morality.
For more on James Sr. Fallow's article is here.
Is Gravestone Showing Occupation or Hobby?: Both
What is depicted occupation or hobby?: Whitesmithing and the making of sundials
Date of birth: Not listed
Date of death: Not listed
Access hours and days: Not listed
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Visit Instructions:Original picture of grave(nothing should be placed on grave stone).
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