Daylight saving put Melbourne’s memorial sunlight an hour behind the ceremony. The Shrine of Remembrance had been aligned so that a natural beam crossed the Stone of Remembrance at 11am on 11 November. When Victoria changed its clocks in 1971, that passage came at noon instead. [1]
The solution used two mirrors, not a new hole through the building. In Rod Deakin’s account, original Shrine surveyor Frank Doolan brought the problem to RMIT in 1975. Frank Johnston devised an inclined mirror on the upper walkway that sent sunlight to a horizontal mirror, facing downwards in the outer roof opening. The second reflection returned it to the original route towards the stone. [1]
Where is this place?
Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne. This map locates the town or region, not a verified exact historic event site.
Keeping that arrangement accurate meant coming back. Speaking to Laura Thomas for the Shrine’s podcast in 2024, Johnston described the mirror support standing on basalt paving set in bitumen. Heat could let those blocks move, so the mirror’s alignment needed checking. The first experiments had used small tripods; the later support was a steel pipe with an adjustable mirror inside its top. [2]
Johnston also explained why the horizontal mirror came out soon after the ceremony: at noon, the sunlight could pass directly through the openings again, allowing the public to see the original alignment at work. Clouds could still spoil either appearance. [2]
Deakin, who had assisted Johnston for decades, recalled another kind of interruption. One year Johnston thought a cloud had hidden the sun. As he leaned forward for a better view from inside the roof, the light was shining on the back of his own head. [1]