Why do clocks go clockwise? Thousands of years before the invention of the clock, sundials were used to tell the time, during the hours of daylight at least.
The gnomon (upright arm) of the sundial casts a shadow on a plate more or less at right angles to it. The shadow moves across the plate in the opposite direction to which the sun appears to move across the sky during the day.
By lining up the gnomon with the Earth's axis, the apparent east-west motion of the sun governs the movement of the shadow across the sundial.
In the northern hemisphere, in the morning the shadow is cast to the west of the sundial's plate, moving to the north at midday and then to the east as the sun sets.
When mechanical clocks were invented, generally thought to have been around 1,000 years ago in Italy, it seemed logical that the movement of the arms should follow the same direction as the shadow cast on a sundial. Therefore 12 o'clock is at the top since the sundial's shadow points north at midday.
Had the clock been invented in the southern hemisphere, it is likely its hands would have moved in the opposite direction since the shadow on a sundial there moves from west in the morning to south at midday and east in the evening. It would in effect have gone anti-clockwise - as far as we in the northern hemisphere are concerned - although of course it would strictly speaking still be going clockwise.