A R T I S T S   &   M E T H O D S   &   H O R O L O G I C A L    L E X I C O N

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Sample write ups' for bracket clocks, chronometers and barometrs (more to follow).
Symbols Explained (text)
Symbols Explained (pictures)
Portraits and names of horologists: 1) 2) 3)

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Act of Parliament clock.

English tavern clocks are often named an 'Act of Parliament clock' due to the tax imposed on clocks and watches in July 1797. The 'Act' was hand-written on a scroll and granted certain duties on clocks and watches to His Majesty (George III)

The Act was very difficult to enforce and led to a dramatic decline in the horological trades. After intense lobbying it was repealed, nine months after it had been enforced and at the end of the three quarter period on April 1798.

The name 'Act of Parliament clock' is a misnomer as the particular design of the tavern clocks had ceased to be made at the time the 'Act' was passed in 1797.

Source: English Dial clocks, R.E. Rose.

Accutron

Agate

Age of the moon

Alarm

Alloy

Amagnetic

Annual calendar (watch)

Anti-magnetic

Applied chapter (Applique)

Arabic numerals

Arbor.  A synonym of axle. A toothed wheel is fixed to the arbor, which is usually cylindrical, and both revolve.

 John Arnold  1736-1799

Art Deco

Asthmometer

Atm (atmosphere)

Atmos   (portraits)

Atmos (portraits) In 1928 a Neuchatel engineer called Jean-Leon Reutter built a clock driven quite literally by air. But it took the Jaeger-LeCoultre workshop a few more years to convert this idea into a technical form that could be patented. And to perfect it to such a degree that the Atmos practically achieved perpetual motion. In 1936 the Manufacture began production of the Atmos.

The technical principle is a beguiling one: inside a hermetically sealed capsule is a mixture of gas and liquid (ethyl chloride) which expands as the temperature rises and contracts as it falls, making the capsule move like a concertina. This motion constantly winds the mainspring, a variation in temperature of only one degree in the range between 15 and 30 degrees centigrade being sufficient for two days' operation.

To convert this small amount of energy into motion, everything inside the Atmos naturally has to work as smoothly and quietly as possible. The balance, for example, executes only two torsional oscillations per minute, which is 150 times slower that the pendulum in a conventional clock. So it's not surprising that 60 million Atmos clocks together consume no more energy that one 15-watt light bulb.

All its other parts, too, are not only of the highest precision, but also practically wear-free. An Atmos can therefore expect to enjoy a service life of a good 600 years, although with today's air pollution we regrettably have to recommend a through cleaning every 20 years or so.

Admirers of advanced technology, however, aren't the only ones who get their money's worth. Connoisseurs of elegant forms, precious materials and traditional craftsmanship, do so as well. Because every Atmos is still made entirely by hand; and with some models a single clock takes a whole month to produce. Not counting the five weeks of trial and adjustment that every Atmos has to undergo. Only then, are the Jaeger-LeCoultre master-watchmakers happy enough with the state of things to confirm it with a signature and allow another Atmos to leave the workshop. After which, many end up in the very best homes, because for decades now the world's most celebrated watch-making country has been presenting its distinguished guests with this masterpiece of Swiss artistry.

The Atmos has had the honour to be associated with great statesmen, royalty, and other renowned people including John F. Kennedy, Sir Winston Churchill, General Charles De Gaulle, and Charlie Chaplin.

#<10000 early mercury type
#10000-25000 early production run
#25000-300000 made in the 1950's and 1960's
#300000-550000 are the 1970's

More on Atmos: 1)
 

Atomic (clock)

Louis Benjamin Audemars  1782-1833

Jean-Baptiste Baillon III (d. 1772)

As one of the leading makers of his day, Jean-Baptiste Baillon III (d. 1772) only used the finest dials such as this one made by Antoine-Nicolas Martinière (1706-84) and cases supplied by the finest makers of his day such as Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain. Other case makers included Jean-Baptiste Osmond, Balthazar Lieutaud, the Caffieris, Vandernasse and Edmé Roy, while Chaillou executed some of his enamel work. Baillon was undoubtedly the most famous member of a long line of clockmakers and one of the most significant makers of the eighteenth century. His importance was largely due to his business acumen and the way in which he organized a vast and thriving manufactory on an unprecedented scale. His private factory in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which was managed from 1748-57 by Jean Jodin (1715-61) and continued until 1765 when Baillon closed it, was unique in the history of eighteenth century clockmaking. The renowned horologist, Ferdinand Berthoud was among many to be impressed by its scale and quality and in 1753 noted "His [Baillon's] house is the finest and richest Clock Shop. Diamonds are used not only to decorate his Watches, but even Clocks. He has made some whose cases were small gold boxes, decorated with diamond flowers imitating nature…His house in Saint-Germain is a kind of factory. It is full of Workmen continually labouring for him…for he alone makes a large proportion of the Clocks and Watches [of Paris]". From there he supplied the most illustrious clientele, not least the French and Spanish royal family, the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne as well as distinguished members of Court and the cream of Paris society.
Baillon's father, Jean-Baptiste II (d. 1757) a Parisian maître and his grandfather, Jean-Baptiste I from Rouen were both clockmakers as was his own son, Jean-Baptiste IV Baillon (b. 1752 d. circa 1773). Baillon himself was received as a maître-horloger in 1727. 1738 saw his first important appointment as Valet de Chambre-Horloger Ordinaire de la Reine. He was then made Premier Valet de Chambre de la Reine sometime before 1748 and subsequently Premier Valet de Chambre and Valet de Chambre-Horloger Ordinaire de la Dauphine to Marie-Antoinette, 1770. His Parisian addresses were appropriately Place Dauphine by 1738 and rue Dauphine after 1751.
Through his success, Jean-Baptiste Baillon amassed a huge fortune, valued at the time of his death, 8th April 1772 at 384,000 livres. His own collection of fine and decorative arts were auctioned on 16th June 1772, while his remaining stock, which was valued at 55,970 livres, was put up for sale on 23rd February 1773. The sale included 126 finished watches, totalling 31,174 livres and 127 finished watch movements at 8,732 livres. There were also 86 clocks, 20 clock movements, seven marquetry clock cases, one porcelain clock case and eight bronze cases of which seven had elephant figures totalling 14,618 livres. To give some idea of the extent of his enterprise the watch movements had reached 4320 and clock movements 3808 in number.
Today we can admire Baillon's work in some of the world's most prestigious collections including the Parisian Musées du Louvre, des Arts Décoratifs, National des Techniques, de Petit Palais and Jacquemart-André. Other examples can be found at Château de Versailles; Musée Paul Dupuy, Toulouse; the Residenz Bamberg; Neues Schloss Bayreuth; Museum für Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt; the Residenzmuseum Munich and Schleissheim Schloss. Further collections include the Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire Brussels; Patrimonio Nacional Spain; the Metropolitan Museum, New York; Newark Museum; Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore and Dalmeny House, South Queensferry.

Bailly (d. after 1818)

As one of the leading clockmakers during the Empire, Bailly was appointed Clockmaker to the Emperor Napoleon and was one of the main suppliers to the Imperial Garde-Meuble. He was also responsible for the maintenance of clocks at Chateau Compiegne and the Trianons, Versailles. Examples of his work can be seen at Compiegne, Fontainebleau and the Trianons as well as in notable French museums - the Louvre, Musee Marmottan, Musee de la Legion d'Honneur and the Garde-National, Paris. Pierre-Philippe Thomire, Claude Galle and others supplied very beautiful cases for his clocks.

Beefe Gilles de

Biographie (par André Thiry) : _ Gille 1 De Beefe, descendant d'une lignée d'habiles horlogers originaires de Befve-lez-Thimister,. is born the 4 octobre 1694. Possédant une grande maîtrise en horlogerie et en mécanique, en 1726, il s'installe à Liège. Le roi du Portugal, en 1733, lui commande deux horloges avec carillons pour le palais de Mafra. En compagnie de Jean Debefve (son cousin) qui remplaça son frère Nicolas (pour une raison à ce jour unknowne), ils se rendent dans cette ville pour y diriger les opérations de montage. Il fit également le carillon de la cathédrale de Lisbonne. Le 28 september 1739 revenu dans son pays et s'y étant perfectionné, Gille obtient du prince - évêque, George Louis de Berghes, " un octroi exclusif pour faire et vendre au Pays de Liège et Comté de Looz des montres à secondes, minutes, sans roues de champ " 2. En 1740, cette invention lui vaut le titre d'horloger de Son Altesse le Prince et en 1752, il est nommé horloger de la cathédrale Saint-Lambert. En 1754, il conclut une convention avec le chapitre de la cathédrale afin de construire une nouvelle horloge dotée d'un carillon. L'ouvrage terminé est si parfait qu'il reçoit une gratification.
Gille de Beefe est décédé le 16 september 1763; Il est donc impossible de lui attribuer l'horloge de l'église saint Servais à Maestricht.
P; Th. R. Mestrom dans son ouvrage "Limburgse klokken en hun Makers" Maastricht, 1997 page 82, annonce de beefe François 1718-1784, fils de Gille de Beefe comme le réalisateur de cette horloge.
La date de naissance (François) 4 december 1718, fils de Gille, correspond avec les données de cet historien.
François, maître carillonneur - horloger à l'âge de 49 ans va entreprendre la fabrication de l'horloge de l'église saint Servais à Maestricht situé à 30 km de Thimister.
Le 16/08/1745, il est surveillant et réparateur des horloges des tours de la ville. à cette époque, Maestricht faisait partie de la principauté de Liège.
Les pièces d'horlogerie que l'on attribue à François de Beefe à Maestricht sont postérieures à la date de sa rentrée du Portugal à Thimister le 30/09/1739.
A titre d'anecdote : la machine à carillonner de la cathédrale saint Lambert porte la mention "G. et N. de Beefe 1756". Lors de la révolution liégeoise en 1794, la cathédrale Saint Lambert fut détruite. Le carillon survécu et fut réinstallé dans le clocher de la cathédrale Saint Paul. Il refonctionna pour la première fois le 6 august 1813 à l'occasion du passage à Liège de l'impératrice Marie-Louise.
Certains éléments de cette biographie proviennent de messieurs Florent Pholien (†) et Pierre Guérin.

Ferdinand  Berthoud    1)
  
The quest for accurate timekeeping owes much to his numerous inventions, innovations and writings.
He was born in Plancemont, Switzerland, the son of an architect and judiciary. In 1741 he
began a three year apprenticeship as a clockmaker under his brother, Jean-Henri. He
subsequently went to Paris, where it is thought he studied under the eminent clockmaker,
Julien Le Roy (1686-1759). Even before he attained his mastership in 1754 he had begun
to establish great repute. In 1752 Berthoud, aged 25 was invited to present to the Académie des Sciences a clock he had made which had a perpetual calendar and also indicated mean and solar time. It was received with great acclaim. He made his first marine chronometer in 1754 (sent for trial in 1761) and in 1764 was appointed "Horloger Mécanicien de sa Majesté et de la Marine ayant l'inspection de la construction des horloges Marines". 
The position was of considerable importance especially at a time when the race to find longitude (and thus a means of measuring time accurately at sea) was the social and political talk of Europe. 
From 1766 Berthoud was put in charge of designing all timepieces used on board
the French royal fleet. In the same year he was made a member of the Royal Society
London and was later appointed a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur.
Berthoud not only made numerous complex and quality pieces but also wrote over 4000
pages on the subject. He was a great innovator whose most notable inventions included a
bimetallic compensating balance and a detent escapement. His clocks and watches have
rightly been described at the cutting edge of horological invention. His work is prized by
major private collectors and museum curators including those at the Metropolitan Museum
and Frick Collection, New York and at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers and Mobilier
National, Paris. The Wallace Collection, London; the National Museum, Stockholm and
the Mathematische Physikalische Salon, Dresden also represent his oeuvre.
 

Ferdinand Berthoud   Paris.  2)

1729: born in Le Locle (Switzerland)
1745: Went to Paris to Julien LE ROY
1754: Master
1771: Horloger de la marine
1807: died

Devised the spring detent probably independently of EARNSHAW.
1759: Published: 'L'Art de régler les pendules,' .
1763: Published: 'Essai sur l'Horlogerie,'
1773: Published: 'Traité des Horloges Marines,
1773: Published: Éclaircissements sur l'Invention des Horloges Marines? .
1775: Published: 'Les Longitudes par la mesure du Temps,'
1787: Published: 'Histoire de la Mesure du Temps,'
1792: Published: 'Traité des Montres à Longitudes,'
1797: Published: 'Suite du Traité des Montres à Longitudes,'
1802: Published: 'Histoire de la mesure du Temps,'
1807: Published: 'Supplément au Traité des Montres à Longitudes,'

Clockmaker to the King and the Marine.
Membre de l'Institute F.R.S. London.
Made first chronometer 1754, sent for trial 1761.

Ferdinand Berthoud   Paris.  3)

More about Berthoud:
Ferdinand Berthoud, Julien le Roy and Breguet are the three most famous names in French clockmaking.
Berthoud was born at Plancement, commune de Couvet, caton de Neuchâtel, Switzerland, on 19 March 1727. His father, an architect and magistrate of the Val de Travers, had at first destined him for an ecclesiastical career, but as at a very early age he showed interest in mechanical matters, he decided to have him taught clockmaking. At the age of 14 Ferdinand was apprenticed to his brother Jean Henri.
When he was 19, he borrowed 200 livres to go to Paris, where another brother, Jean-Jaques, a designer, was already established. It is thought that he worked for Julien Le Roy for some time, before settings up his own workshop in the rue du Harley, not far from the house in which the latter was still working. At this time he made the acquaintance of Piere Le Roy, who, throughout his career, was his only rival.

In 1752 he presented to the Academy of Science an equation watch with a perpetual calendar.

His knowledge of mathematics and physics, together with his ability to impress the authorities with his capacities, enabled him in 1764 to obtain the office of "Horloger de la Marine Royale" (Clockmaker toe the Royal Navy), with an annual pension of 3000 livres, which ensured, with his other activities, An average income of 7,500 livres a year. By order of the King, he went twice to England, with Camus and Lalande, to examine John Harrison's marine clocks. Although he was able to study clocks number 1, 2, and 3 Harrison refused to show him clock number 4. After having learnt some English,, during his second journey, in 1766, Berthoud obtained from Thomas Mudge, who, with Kendall and Matthews, belonged to the committee responsible for examining Harrison's watch number 4, which allowed him to enlarge his own researches. He then undertook the construction of his own marine clocks 6 and 8, which were taken to Rochefort, and handed over on 3 November 1768 to Eveux de Fleurieu, commanding the frigate Isis, who, assisted by the astronomer Pingré, was to test them during a voyage on he high seas.

The precision instruments that he invented enabled Berthoud to perfect a rigorous experimental technique, adopted bu all his successors, and particularly by his nephew Pierre Louis Berthoud.

He can be criticised for having sought to appropriate the important discoveries concerning marine watches made by Pierre le Roy, his celebrated rival. However, it would be unfair to think that Ferdinand Berthoud's considerable quantity of work did not contribute to the progress of chronometry.
We owe to him many experimental  marine watches, most of which, purchased by the Government, are preserved in the Musée National des Techniques (C.N.A.M.), Paris. They include watches and clockes with equation of time, seconds watches, and superb astronomical longcase clocks fitted with compensated pendulums which he invented. All the timepieces that he made show his great dexterity, and the exceptional quality of his execution.

He left many documents on clockmaking, printed at State expense, in which his experiments and intentions are described in great detail. From a small pamphlet, published in 1759 under title L'art de coduire et r´´gler lres pendules et les montres à l'usage de cuex qui n'ont aucune connaissance d'horogerie, which went into six editions between 1759 and 1836, without counting Henri Robert's edition of 1841 and the numerous translations into different languages, to his Supplement au traité des horloges marines...published in the year of his death 1807, the written work of Ferdinand Berthoud covers more than 400 pages, illustrated by over 120 plates, engraved from drawings by the author.
He died on 20 June 1807, in his property at Groslay, near Montmorency, leaving no children. He married twice, firstly Mademoiselle Chati of Cean, and then Mademoiselle Dumoustier of Saint Quentin.

Ferdinand Berthoud was appointed, in succession, Clockmaker to the Navy, Member of the Institute of France, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, and Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. The State paid him an annual pension of 3000 livres until the day of his death. His name figures among those of great men engraved on the facade of the Palace of Industry.

His chief pupils were Jacques and Vincent Martin, and particularly his nephew Pierre Louis Berthoud.

Pierre Louis Berthoud

Pierre-Louis Berthoud (1754-1813), known as Louis was a very important clockmaker and an ingenious scientist. His father, Pierre was a clockmaker but Louis trained under his highly esteemed uncle, Ferdinand Berthoud (1727-1807) and later succeeded Ferdinand’s business. Like his uncle, Louis was particularly interested in precision horology specialising in making regulators, over 150 chronometers as well as clocks and watches. He was appointed as clockmaker to the Observatoire and to the Bureau de Longitude. He won a gold medal at the Paris Exposition, l’an X (1800/1) and wrote ‘Entretiens sur l’horlogerie”.   

Jean Simon Bourdier

JEAN-SIMON BOURDIER (c. 1760-1839)
One of the most innovative clockmakers of his time, Jean-Simon Bourdier became a maitre horloger in Paris on 22 September 1787. He is recorded as working in the rue des Precheurs in 1787, quai de 1'Horloge du Palais circa 1790, rue Mazarine in 1801, rue Saint-Saveur in 1812 and rue Saint-Denis in 1830. He gained a silver medal in the 1806 and 1879 produits de I'industrie exhibitions.
He is known to have worked with the ebenistes Lieutaud and Riesener as well as the bronziers Galle, Thomire and Remond. his dials were painted by the emailleurs Dubuisson and Coteau. His clocks were also sold by the dealers Daguerre -and Lignereux and Juilliot.

Abraham Louis Breguet       1754-1823  Breguet

1747: born at Neuchatel, 1823: died

Started in Paris 1776, but watch No. 1 is of 1787. Breguet attracted the attention of Louis XV and set up in Paris on the quai de l'Horloge. He became a member of the Academy des Science. Very soon Kings, Princes and European celebrities were buying his watches. Breguet made the first "perfect&hibar; automatic watch, capable of running for eight years without being overhauled and without going slow. This watch still keeps perfect time today. Breguet's inventions meant that it was possible from then on to make watches accurate to within a tenth of a second. Thanks to him, considerable progress was made in marine navigation, astronomy and physics, and his contemporaries began to look at the time in the way you look at a jewel. Breguet signed his watches in the way that Boulle signed his furniture and Rembrandt his paintings.
The extra-flat watch was one of Breguet's inventions. The perpetual or automatic watch, the perfecting of so-called "multiple complication" watches, the balance spring, were all Breguet. The "tact" watch, the constant-force escapement and the tourbillon watch were also by him. It would take hours to list all his inventions. Many watches bearing his name were made outside and finished in his workshop. There are innumerable watches being his name in forgery. He made many improvements, including the parachute ca.1790, and the tourbillon in 1801, also many self-winding watches. He was the first to make lever escapement with lift partly on the pallets and partly on the teeth. The overcoil balance spring is known by his name. Draw was absent from early levers, but used after 1814.

Most important collections contain genuine and forged watches. The late Sir David Salomons had a collection of 102 watches and 6 clocks by Breguet.

Subscription watches: British Museum, London, Guildhall Museum. British Science Museum, S. Kensington

Striking cylinder watch and musical. repetition. cylinder watch: British Science Museum.S. Kensington

Tourbillon watches: Guildhall Museum and Ilbert collection. The latter, of 1808, was the first made.

Verge watch: Dennison collection.

Pedometer winding repetition watch No. 27 (1791), several watches and pedometer: Ilbert collection,

Regulators: Buckingham Palace and Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, Paris
 

Pierre A. Caron  1732-1799

James Ferguson Cole      1799-1880

Salomon Coster.

Salomon Coster, a famous Dutch maker born in Haarlem before 1623, moved to The Hague shortly after his marriage in 1643. Like several Haarlem clockmakers, he was an Anabaptist. In 1646 Pieter Visbagh was apprenticed to him for six years, and in 1657 Christiaan Reijnaert for ten years. In the same year Christiaan Huygens allowed him ('met privilege') to make and sell pendulum clocks. In this year John Fromanteel came from London and worked with Coster for at least eight months, but probably much longer, followed by Nicolas Hanet from Paris in 1658. Salomon Coster died suddenly in December of 1659 and the following year the shop was taken over from Coster’s widow by Pieter Visbagh.
Ref: Dr. R. Plomp, Spring driven Dutch pendulum clocks 1657-1710.

Joseph Coteau

JOSEPH COTEAU (1740-1801) Joseph Coteau was born in 1740, probably in Geneva and died in Paris on 21 January 1801. He became maitre-pintre-emailleur at the Academic de Saint-Luc in Geneva on 6 November 1766 and was installed in rue Poupee, Paris by 1772. Coteau is celebrated not only for his skill in decorating enamelled dials but also as a skilled miniaturist. He discovered a new method for fixing raised gold on porcelain and worked closely with the Sevres manufactory in developing their so-called "jewelled" porcelain.

Edward John Dent    1790-1853

Dubuisson

Gobin Etienne, (b. 1731 d. after 1815) known as Dubuisson, who with Coteau was the finest of his trade. After living in Luneville and Strasbourg, Dubuisson worked at Chantilly. In 1756 he was employed at Sevres as a flower painter, specialising in enamelling watch cases and clock dials.

John Ellicot  1706-1772

Josiah Emery  1725-1797

Thomas Earnshaw  1749-1829

Equation of Time          

Along with the transition from telling time with sundials to telling time with clocks, people realized that the time from one noon to the next was not constant. Part of the jargon invented to deal with the situation is "sun time", the time a sundial would tell, and "mean time", the time an accurate clock would tell. The difference between the two is an error that has come to be called the "Equation of Time". It is usually described as a table, plotted as the error vs. the Sun's declination, or plotted a graph of error vs. date:



See full equation table.  
See today's equation.    
Equation Table by Claude Raillard a Paris 1718. (master 1691, d.1762)
 

Admiral Fitzroy 1805-1865


1) ADMIRAL ROBERT FITZROY     (By Charles Edwin inc.)

Robert Fitzroy, son of Lord Charles, was born at Ampton Hall, Suffolk, in 1805 and entered the Navy at the age of 12. During his long career, he was for many years Captain of the HMS Beagle which achieved fame as a result of Charles Darwin's expeditions. He eventually rose to the rank of Admiral, was elected Member of Parliament for Durham in 1841, and appointed Governor of New Zealand in 1843.
At his retirement from active service in 1850, he turned his attention to the science of meteorology. Among his considerable accomplishments, he induced the Times to print weather information on a daily basis and the Board of Trade to supply many coastal villages with barometers. He designed a vastly improved marine barometer.
In 1862 he published his Weather Book which summarized his extensive and immensely important work on meteorology.

To the barometer collector, he is most remembered for consolidating weather information and presenting his now classic Remarks, which distinguish the barometer carrying his name, that interpret the meaning of rising or falling mercury. He coined a useful phrase which is as good today as it was then:
"Long foretold - Long Last    Short notice - Soon Past"

Admiral Fitzroy's Barometers were not designed by and were probably never seen by Admiral Fitzroy who took his own life in 1865 before the earliest known Fitzroys were made.


ADMIRAL FITZROY'S BAROMETER

By far the best known type of barometer ever produced was called Admiral Fitzroy's Barometer and was the first inexpensive and serviceable barometer made by mass-production methods. The earliest Fitzroys were made in the late 1860s, so it is probable that Fitzroy himself, who died by his own hand in 1865, never saw one.

Common to these large late-19th century instruments is the degree of detailed information concerning not only the rise and fall of pressure, but of associated conditions of temperature and direction of the wind. His remarks, carried on most barometers, emphasize the fact that the state of the air, as shown by the barometer, tells coming rather than present weather conditions.

Typical ancillary instruments include a Fahrenheit thermometer and a storm glass. Storm glasses have been known since the 17th century but came into general use with the Fitzroy barometer. Clamped onto the lower left, these are glass cylinders with brass caps. The contents are a mixture of camphor, ammonia, alcohol, potassium nitrate, and water, which reacts to air pressure, wind direction, and electrical charge of the air.


Typical readings and the predicted weather:
Clear liquid . . . . Good, fine weather
Crystals at bottom . . . . Frost in winter
Turbid liquid (substance rising) . . Rain
Turbid liquid with crystals. . . . Thunder
Large crystals. . . . Close weather, cloudy skies, snow
Chains of crystals at the top . . . . Windy weather
Substance lies to one side . . . . Storm or wind from other direction

Copyright 1996-1999 © by Charles Edwin Inc.
 

2) About  ADMIRAL FITZROY

Admiral Robert Fitzroy was one of the first to attempt a scientific weather forecast, introducing the first daily weather forecasts which were published in The Times in 1860. He began his career in the navy and was famous for choosing Charles Darwin as a companion during the voyage on the Beagle. As a sailor, Fitzroy had always been aware of the importance of forecasting the weather.

Once he had completed his famous journey, he took up the newly created post of Head of Meteorology at the Board of Trade (the Met Office) and began to collate the information necessary to predict the weather. Using the newly invented electric telegraph, Fitzroy managed to receive data quickly enough to make a forecast viable.

Fitzroy's name was associated with several different types of barometers, though whether he could be called the inventor of all of them is questionable.

One version of the barometer of which he was responsible for the designing and distribution, was used by sailors prior to sailing. Fitzroy advocated placing a barometer at every port so that seamen could read them before embarking on their journeys. Decisions on whether to sail or not were able to be made based on the level of the mercury within the instrument, saving many lives.

The Fitzroy barometers were enormously popular, both because of their ease of use and their association with the highly respected Admiral Fitzroy. This interest continued into the twentieth century.

Some of the components added onto the Fitzroy Barometers included bottle tubes, storm glasses, thermometers and Fitzroy's instructions for interpreting the results.

Unfortunately Admiral Robert Fitzroy never felt completely satisfied by his achievements. Though he had saved many lives by his advances in forecasting the weather, he had a conflict with his conscience and his religious beliefs. This he never resolved in life and at the age of sixty he committed suicide by cutting his throat.

Picture of Fitzroy barometer
 

Charles Frodsham     1810-1871

William Frodsham      1778-1850

Georg Graham  1673-1751

Gregorian calendar    ( calendrier grégorien )

The calendar introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 to reform the Julian calendar. The majority of countries refer to the Gregorian calendar. It has 365¼ days. A non-leap year has 7 months each with 31 days, 4 months with 30 days, and 1 month with 28 days (29 days in a leap year). It is a solar calendar, based on the movement of the sun.

Under the Julian calendar, the year was 11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than the solar year. By 1582 the accumulated difference came to 10 days. The Gregorian calendar introduced the following system: each year that can be divided by four is a leap year.
Century years are leap years only if they are evenly divisible by four hundred. Hence 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not leap years whereas 2000 was.

1582: On Friday October 15th (which came after Thursday October 4th in the Julian Calendar), Italy, Spain, Portugal, France and the Catholic Dutch provinces implemented the Gregorian Calendar, introduced by Pope Gregory XIII.

1584: Austria, Germany and Catholic Switzerland.

1586: Poland.

1587: Hungary.

1610: Prussia.

1648: Alsace (Strasbourg in 1682 following its annexation by France).

1700: Germany, Switzerland, the Protestant Dutch provinces, Denmark and Norway.

1752: Adopted by England, its American colonies, and Sweden.

1753: Protestant Switzerland (the last canton being Grisons, in 1811).

1873: Japan replaced the Chinese lunar calendar with the Gregorian calendar.

1912: China took the Gregorian calendar as its official calendar

1916: Bulgaria.

1923: Greece, USSR (the October Revolution of 1917, which marked the start of the Russian Revolution, was in November of the Gregorian Calendar).

1919: Rumania and Yugoslavia.

1926: Turkey.

The monasteries of Mount Athos (Macedonia) still use the Julian Calendar.

 

Henry Grandjean  1774-1845

Hamilton Watches  1892 Brief History of the Hamilton Watch Company.
 
Although the Hamilton Watch Company opened in December of 1892, they spent over a year "gearing up" without producing a watch. Their start of production was March of 1894. The only watches they produced were pocket watches, most notably their reliable railroad watches.

In 1908, they started making ladies pendant watches which were much smaller than the large pocket watches produced until then. Ladies wristwatches were introduced after World War I. They were a re styling of the pendant watches, and had cloth or ribbon straps.

Men's wristwatches were considered effeminent prior to the 1920's. Hamilton introduced their first men's "strap watch" on November 11, 1922. They had to not only market the watch, but they had to market the "idea" of a strap or wrist watch. Finally, their use in hot summers when vests were not worn, the association with the war, explorers, and rugged outdoor activities all helped the wristwatch gain acceptance. Hamilton was out in front selling the idea, and aimed much of their promotional materials at merchants--how to sell the "idea."

In the late twenties, they introduced some stylish watches like the "Cushion," "Square," and the "Tonneau." Their art deco designs of the 1930's were accompanied with the practice of naming all of the watches. Many people think the 1930's designs were the golden age of Hamilton's design and production.

World War II saw the halt of consumer production to concentrate on military watches. Following the war, they sold pre-war designs. Hamilton had introduced new designs in the early 1950's. By the mid 50's, their styling failed to capture the American public.

In 1957, they introduced the world's first electric watch--the Ventura. With a radical asymmetric design to accompany the radical technology, it became Hamilton's best ever selling gold watch. Many think that the superb manual movements of the 1930's through the 1950's, and the innovative electric watch, make Hamilton the most influential watch company of the century.

They are still producing watches today, but the brand name is now owned by the Swatch Group. They last produced watches under their own original company in 1969.

hamilton watches dates

John Harrison  1693-1776

Jaques Frederic Houriet  1743-1830

Pierre Frederic Ingold  1787-1878

Temporal hours.

 Japanese traditional timekeeping practices (profoundly influenced by chinese horometry) required the use of unequal temporal hours: six daytime units from local sunrise to local sunset, and six night time units from sunset to sunrise. As such, Japanese timekeepers varied with the seasons; the daylight hours were longer in summer and shorter in winter, and vice versa. European mechanical clocks were by contrast set up to tell equal hours that did not vary with the seasons.

Most Japanese clocks were driven by weights; however, the Japanese were also aware of, and occasionally made, clocks that ran from springs. Like the Western lantern clocks that inspired their design, the weight driven clocks were often held up by specially built tables or shelves that allowed the weights to drop beneath them. Spring driven Japanese clocks were made for portability; the smallest were the size of large watches, and carried by their owners in inro pouches.

	Daily time to rewind and set clocks (with a sundial)   Midday.
Sunrise.		Sunset.
	Midnight. Each hour (toki) was divided into 10 'bu'.

The traditional Japanese time system.

The typical clock had six numbered hours from 9 to 4, which counted backwards from noon until midnight; the hour numbers 1 through 3 were not used in Japan for religious reasons, because these numbers of strokes were used by Buddhists to call to prayer. The count ran backwards because the earliest Japanese artificial timekeepers used the burning of incense to count down the time. Dawn and dusk were therefore both marked as the sixth hour in the Japanese timekeeping system.

In addition to the numbered temporal hours, each hour was assigned a sign from the Japanese zodiac.

Starting at dawn, the six daytime hours were:

From dusk, the six nighttime hours were:

The Meiji Restoration (1868-1912) marked the beginning of the rapid modernization of Japan as it strove to "catch up" to the Western powers which it had fallen behind in technological and social development. Public education was instituted in 1872, as was the western Gregorian solar* calendar with its 'equal hours' system of timekeeping (1 jan. 1873). It sparked a renewed interest in time keeping.

Japan's first mass production clock factory, Kingensha, was established in 1875. In 1892, Kintaro Hattori founded Seikosha (later know as Seiko), which remains a cornerstone of Japanese timepiece production to this day.

* the lunar calendar was abolished.

More: 1)

Pierre Jaquet-Droz

1) 
Pierre Jaquet-Droz was bom at La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1721 and died in Bienne in 1790. He was one of the most brilliant and innovative clockmakers of his era. His company specialised in musical and automaton clocks, boxes, fans, singing birds and all manner of ingenious play-toys. He journeyed throughout the whole world including England, France and Spain. In Madrid he was condemned to death by the inquisition for allegedly, practicing black magic but was saved by the Bishop of Toledo. During the latter part of his life he took his adopted son, J.F. Leschot into business and the company continued to prosper until after his death.
Jaquet Droz made a number of organ clocks.

2)
Pierre Jacquet Droz 1721-1790  

Juno was worshipped as protectress of women especially in marriage and childbirth. According to mythology she was the chief goddess of Olympus and both sister and wife of Jupiter. Here we see Cupid holding her girdle. This magic belt, borrowed from Venus was intended to make anyone that wore it irresistibly desirable - which Juno needed to attract the attention of her faithless husband, Jupiter. She also carries a sceptre, which like the peacock was another other attributes. In the "Golden Ass", Apuleius told the story of how Juno sent Argus, a giant with 100 eyes to watch over lo. Mercury then killed Argus, so in his memory Juno placed his eyes onto the tail of her peacock.

Urban Jürgensen  1776-1830

1) Jørgen Jørgensen
Jürgen Jürgensen Founder of the dynasty, born in 1745.
He began his apprenticeship in Kobenhavn in 1759 and finished it in 1765. In 1766 he started a big tour through Germany and Switzerland. He took this opportunity to change his name to Jürgen Jürgensen. Finally he reached Geneva and Le Locle. There he found work in J. F. Houriet's factory. Later he became the latter's agent for Scandinavia. Returning to Kobenhavn, he founded his own workshop and a watchmaking factory together with Isaak Larpent in 1773. He married Anna Leth Bruun in 1775. Two of his children became watchmakers. He was finally appointed watchmaker to the Danish court in 1785.
He died in 1811.

2) Urban Son of Jürgen, born in 1776.
After his school years he did his apprenticeship with his father, beginning in 1790. In 1795 his father sent him on a tour to Switzerland, specifically to Le Locle and Geneva. After 2 years there, he moved to Paris, where he met Breguet and F. Berthoud, and then to London, to meet Arnold, all this sponsored by the Danish State. He travelled home via Paris, Le Locle, where he married the daughter of J. F. Houriet, and Geneva. By the end of 1801 we find him back in Kobenhavn working together with his father. In 1804 he published his first book (see Bibliography). From 1807 - 1809 he travelled again to Le Locle, to visit his relatives, and to Geneva, to learn jewelling for horological purposes. After the death of his father, in 1811, he opened his own business. He signed "Urban Juergensen". In 1815 he was elected as a member of the Royal Philosophic Society, in 1822 he was appointed "maker" to the Admiralty, and in 1815 knight of the order of the Danebrog. Two of his children became watchmakers.
He died in 1830.

Please note: Wherever Urban writes Neuchâtel in his autobiography, he means the county. The town he went to was Le Locle, because J. F. Houriet lived there.

3) Frederik Son of Jürgen, born in 1787.
He was 11 years younger than his brother. After school he also did his apprenticeship in the workshop of his father but was taught by Urban. 1811 we meet him in Le Locle visiting his brother's relatives and working there. At the time of his father's death he still stayed in Switzerland. Called back to Kopenhagen his brother more or less forced him to take over the parental workshop as well as the factory and to run it together with and for his mother. So from 1811 onwards the signature "Larpent & Juergensen" was changed in "Frederik Juergensen". For this Urban reached for him to hold an appointment as a watchmaker to the Danish court in 1811. The same year he married. After the birth of a daughter in 1813 the son Georg Urban, also called Fritz, was born in 1818. Things were not going bad but Frederik was of a rather poor health. So the last years of his life he made big efforts to pave the ways for his son to keep the horological production going on.
He died in 1843.

4) Louis Urban Son of Urban, born in 1806, died in 1867

5) Jules Frederik,
known as Jules Son of Urban, born in 1808, died in 1877

6) Georg Urban Frederik,
known as Fritz Son of Frederik, born in 1818, died in 1863

7) Urban August Son of Louis Urban, born in 1836, died in 1866

8) Jules Urban Frédéric,
known as Jules II Son of Jules, born in 1837, died in 1894

9) Jaques Alfred Son of Jules, born in 1842, died in 1912
 

Excerpt of a talk on ‘Traditional Brass Lacquering’ by Francis Brodie who has worked in Dan Parkes workshops and also for several museums.  Francis demonstrated by deftly and very thinly lacquering some polished brass tubes. Aided by a small heat gun, the lacquer dried almost instantly before further coats were applied. Various lacquers, which had all been pre-mixed according to old recipes, were applied to tubes and also to a flat sheet of polished brass. The main possible advantage of a thin lacquer is that many coats can be applied, building up to the colour and thickness required, also this would lessen the chance of any part of the surface being missed.

Two of the recipes used for the demonstration were as follows:

Francis recommended that a good substitute for Spirits of Wine is isopropyl alcohol. Many of the other ingredients used are still available, but may be a little harder to find these days.
 

Lange Glashutte  Manufacturing dates

Antoine Lechaud  1812-1875

Balthazar Lieutaud   ebiniste

BALTHAZAR. LIEUTAUD (circa 1720-1780) Balthazar Lieutaud became a maitre in 1749. The son of the ebeniste Charles Lieutaud and grandson of Francois Lieutaud an ebeniste from Marseilles, he specialized in clockcases. He worked with the bronziers Philippe Caffieri, Charles Grirnpelle and Edme Roye. By 1750 he was installed in rue de la Pelleterie on the ile de la cite, the clockmakers' district and moved to the rue d'Enfer in 1772. Following his death in 1780, his wife, Nicole Godard (1721-1800), continued to run the atelier.

Jean-Joseph Lepaute

Jean-Joseph Lepaute, 1769-1846, was the great nephew of the founder of the Lepaute dynasty Jean-Andre Lepaute, 1720-1789.
Jean-Joseph joined the Company as junior partner to Pierre-Basil Lepaute who was the son of Jean-Andre's brother Joseph. The partnership was perhaps the most fruitful of them all and together they made a great number of pieces for the Chateaux of the Tuilleries, St. Cloud, Trianon and Fontainebleau. In 1811 the firm divided and Pierre-Basil formed his own firm with his son Pierre-Michel under the name of Lepaute Fils.
Jean-Joseph Lepaute later took on Augustin-Michel Henry who was the son of Pierre Henry who had married Jean-Andre Lepaute's sister Elizabeth. Pierre later changed his name to Henry Neveu Lepaute and married Annais, the daughter of Jean-Joseph.
The Lepaute dynasty continued but the present clock is a remarkable achievement of best quality clockmaking and the very highest quality case-work. 

 Jean André le Paute  1720-1789

Jean-Antoine Lepine

LÉPINE Jean Antoine, son of Jean. Paris (Place Dauphine), b.1720, d.1814. 

He was bom in Switzerland in a village called Challex near Geneva. He started his horological career in Geneva but soon went to Paris in 1744 as apprentice to Andre Charles Caron, the King's clockmaker. He married Caron's daughter in 1756 and was made Master in 1765 about which time he was appointed Horloger du Roi.

Lepine was responsible for a great many inventions but none more important than a new calibre of watch movement that revolutionized watch making and with which his name is synonymous. This 'Lepine calibre,' in which separate bars were used instead of a single top plate was introduced about 1760.

Introduced the use of a mainspring barrel supported at one end only, and other changes, leading, with cyl. escapement, to thin watches. Described a repeating movement using rack in place of chain, in Mémbre de l'Acadademy des Science in 1766.

Watchmaker to: Louis XV, Louis XVI and Napoleon I.

Invented the virgule escapement and a keyless winding.
Acted as agent for Voltaire's workshops at Ferney ca.1770.
4-colour g. watch: Victoria and Albert Museum. S. Kensington
Enamelled watch and chatelaine: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge,
Six watches: Guildhall Museum
Two with virgule escapement: Collection of the late Major Chamberlaine
4-colour gold watch Fränkel coll.Lyre watch: Basle Museum
Gold enamelled watches: M.P.S. Dresden. Watch Carnegie Museum
Two 4-colour gold watches: National Museum Stockholm,
Watch in porcelain case: Gélis coll.Watch in ring: Ilbert coll.
Astro. clock and three mantel clocks: Buckingham Palace, London
Two clocks: Palais de Compiègne, one made for Napoleon.Clock made for Josephine, Mobilier National, Paris
 
An eminent maker.  He  worked as CARON ET LEPINE till 1769. Left his business to his son-in-law RAGUET in 1783.

Lepine's business was sold in 1810 to J. B. CHAPUY, who employed Jacques Lepine. It was sold in 1827 to DESCHAMP, who was succeeded in 1832 by FABRE. The business continued under the name Lépine till ca.1916.

Jean Frederic Leschot   1746-1824 

Georg Auguste Leschot  1800-1884

Sylvain Jean Mairet  1805-1890

Antoine-Nicolas Martinière  b.1706 d.1784

Martinière was a remarkable inventor and enamellist, whose talents so impressed King Louis XV that he was appointed Emailleur et Pensioneur du Roi. Martinière was the first enameller to create a complete single enamel dial. Because of the fragile, volatile nature of enamel, prior to this complete enamelled dials had been restricted to watches. By the late seventeenth century clock dials featured separate enamel plaques to display the hours, then followed an attempt to create complete dials out of 13 or 25 individual pieces which were fitted together to form a seemingly smooth surface. This was to change, thanks to Martinière's dramatic technical advances circa 1740.
His unprecedented advance is best summed up in his own words, which appeared in 1740 in 'Mercure de France'. In his 'Lettre écrite de Paris à un horloger de Province sur les Cadrans d'Email', Martinière wrote

"You ask me, Sir, to find out from the Porcelain Manufacturers if they could make you a Clock Dial one foot in diameter, because you tell me that you know it is impossible to make any of this size all in enamel, like Watch Dials. It is true that until recently this was impossible in the City, and even at Court: here is an example. The King ordered a Clock, and His Majesty wished that the Dial be all of one piece, in enamel, and 14 inches in diameter. The one who received the order could only reply that he would attempt to carry it out, not that he would succeed. The Sr Martinière, Enameller, in the rue Dauphine, undertook this task, and succeeded so well in all respects, that he had the honour of presenting it himself to His Majesty, who was agreeably surprised, and gave him signs of satisfaction with so much kindness that he returned to Paris, enchanted with so happy a success, and resolved to carry out new studies in order to advance as much in his Art as would be possible..."

It was probably at this time that the King granted Martiniere a pension and the title of Emailleur et Pensioneur du Roi. Louis XV, whose interest in horology extended beyond the realms of a collector but also as a benefactor, rewarded certain craftsmen of outstanding talent.

Antoine Nicolas belonged to a family of enamelers that included not only his father, described by the 'Mercure' as an "able" enameler, but also his two brothers and three cousins. Martinière and his wife, Geneviève Larsé had one son, Jacques-Nicolas (b. 1738) who became a clockmaker. At the time of his son’s birth the Martinières were living in rue Haute des Ursins. By 1740 Martinière was established at the sign of the ‘Cadran d’Email’ in rue Dauphine and then from 1741-55 in rue des Cinq Diamants in the parish of Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie.

More on Martinière: 1) 2) 3)

Note: later fine dial makers were: Dubuisson, Elie Barbezat, Edme-Portail Barbichon, Jean-Antoine Cave, Georges-Adrien Merlet and Joseph Coteau.
 

Marcwick Markham
 
James Markwick jr. became free of the Clockmakers' Company in 1692 and died in 1730. His father's business succeeded that of Samuel Betts, one of the great early clockmaking pioneers. Markwick jr. became Master in 1720 and went into partnership with his brother-in-law Robert Markham who succeeded him in the business and carried on trading under the name Markwick Markham. Towards the end of the 18th. century the company made a large number of clocks and watches for the Turkish and Chinese markets. In fact the business was so successful that their name became synonymous with this type of clock.
Over a period of time the company associated themselves with a number of other clockmakers; Henry Borrell, 1794-1840, seems to have had a fruitful relationship with the company which is listed as ending in 1813.

Georges-Adrien Merlet

(illustrated in Jean-Dominique Augarde, “Les Ouvriers du Temps”, 1996, p. 17, pl. 4). Merlet was one of the finest enamellers to specialise in the decoration of clock dials. Like Coteau and Dubuisson he gained renown during the last quarter of the eighteenth century for highly ornamented dials and enamelled clocks.

Louis Moinert   1758-1853

 Thomas Mudge  1715-1794

Ulysse Nardin  1823-1876

Niderviller  porcelain  active:1754 -present

Niderviller Porcelain Manufactory

In the mid-1700s, porcelain became so popular among the nobility that aristocrats began sponsoring their own manufactories. Jean-Louis Beyerlé, an advisor to the king, founded one such operation at Niderviller in 1748, developing it out of an earlier faience-making business. The new enterprise initially drew its workers and stylistic inspiration from a neighboring concern in Strasbourg, which produced ceramic wares in the Rococo taste. At Niderviller, the workers modified the bright Strasbourg palette, making it softer.


Because of its unique location in the duchy of Lorraine—where it was exempt from French laws designed to protect the royal monopoly of the Sèvres porcelain manufactory—Niderviller flourished for nearly twenty years, unlike other French porcelain manufactories. When the Duke of Lorraine died in 1766, the territory reverted back to the French crown, and the manufactory was then subject to new, even tighter restrictions on production and decoration. In 1772 Beyerlé sold the factory to a French count.

Ormolu

The word is of French derivation and should be spelt ormoulu. It means gold ground to a powder for amalgamation with mercury The preparation was applied with a brush to the metal which was then heat treated to vaporise the mercury. The object was then burnished. Ormolu is now understood to refer to brass castings which have been gilt and are used as decoration on clock cases, furniture, and also complete articles such as clock cases, lamp stands etc.

Jacques Panier

Jacques Panier (d. Paris 1737) had become a maître-horloger by 1701 and was also appointed Huissier Chambellan du Rol. By 1701 he was established at Rue des Boucheries-Saint-Germam and then by 1734 had moved to Rue de la Verrerie. He was one of the more important Parisian makers, supplying many of the French aristocracy including the Comte de Toulouse, the Ducs de Villeroy, de Brissac, de Lauragais, de Brancas and de Mazarin. Examples of his work can now be found in the Museum of Decorative Art, Prague and at the Palazzo di Quirinale, Rome. 

Albert Pellaton-Favre (1834-1914)
 
1) A native of Le Locle, was one of the principle constructors of tourbillons. He made no fewer than 82 tourbillon watches, mostly with spring detent escapement, and won prizes from the Geneva and Neuchatel Observatories. He was the father of James Pellaton, director of the Le Locle Technicum, and a fine horologer in his own right.

2) The Pellatons & Patek Philipe.
 
Only the over 35 Tourbillons, which Albert Pellaton-Favre (1832-1914) and his son James Pellaton manufactured for Patek Philippe, is a special class in the area of precision horology. Apart from the outstanding results, obtained by these calibres, it is the esthetical concept combined with the absolute technical perfection and craftsmanship, which distinguished these instruments. The Tourbillons of Pellaton represent the best, ever brought out by the Swiss chronometry. The basic calibre was developed by A.Pellaton Favre. He used, without exception, an Earnshaw chronometer escapement in his revolving carriages. His son James Pellaton 1873 -1954), director of the Technicum Le Locle, manufactured these Tourbillons as free co-worker for Patek Philippe. Unlike his father he favoured however Swiss anchor escapements. He often supplied just the complete ébauche (movement blank) and monitored the completion of the chronometer in house, where he had his own workbench. Exceptional performances could be obtained through these extraordinary privileges as granted by Patek Philipe. Their reputation was established by their farsighted and scientifically oriented way of acting. Although J. Pellaton pursued just a concept, it became increasingly matured. Tiny details, like the perfection of the polish or the golden scale for the adjusting needle, which also served as a counter balance, are from an unequalled constructional genius, which one finds only in these works. It set thereby a standard, on which others were measured. Since regulation of a chronometer begins with its design and construction, it was also due to the Pellatons that these chronometers scored top results in the hands of experienced regulators. A fact often and painfully neglected by other manufacturers.

James Casar Pellaton
 
During the 1920s and 1930s James Casar Pellaton was the most esteemed maker of tourbillon carriages, which he supplied to the most prestigious companies including Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Girard-Perregaux, .and Ulysse Nardin. The watch is described and illustrated in details in "Le Tourbillon" by Reinhard Meis, Les Editions de l'amateur, Paris, 1990, pp. 170-71.James Casar Pellaton (d.1954).One of the most esteemed makers of tourbillons in the 20th century. He learned his craft from his father, also an esteemed tourbillon maker. In terms of design, he followed his father's footsteps, using the same type of ebauches. He became director of the Le Locle Technicum, which in 1943 awarded him the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa.

Abraham Louis Perrelet   1729-1826

Jean Moise Pouzait  1743-1793

Daniël Quare   1649-1724

Raingo (Freres)

Raingo was of French
extraction and fled (probably for political reasons) to Gand, Belgium circa 1800 and almost certainly remained there for the rest of his life. He is also recorded as being clockmaker to the Duc de Chatres in 1823. The company became Raingo Freres circa 1825 and operated from various Paris addresses. Precious little information has come to light on the clockmaker himself (his Christian name is reputed to be Zachariah) but judging by the number of examples with retailers' names on the dials and his unfashionable location he relied heavily on others for retail.

Most of Raingo's 20-30 surviving orreries just have the basic tellurium on a circular base, the two best known examples of this type are in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle and at the Soane Museum, London. The present example with its musical movement and plinth base represents the rarest of all the types known to exist.

"Living On Air"

The History of the Legendary Atmos Clock:

In the late 1920s Jean-Leon Reutter, a young Paris engineer, experimented with a clock that needed no direct mechanical or electrical intervention to keep it wound, in short a clock powered only by Perpetual Motion.

For centuries, many scientist including Leonardo Da Vinci had experimented with the idea of Perpetual Motion - however, only J.L. Reutter eventually succeeded at incorporating that novel idea into an actual working clock.

Through out his life, J.L. Reutter's dream of a Perpetual Motion timepiece led him to produce a clock with a timekeeping mechanism designed specifically to consume the smallest possible amount of power to keep the clock running satisfactorily.

After studying the design of the 400-Day Anniversary Clock -which was very popular during that era - Reutter made significant changes to that concept, to meet the small input power requirement he was looking for in his new clock design.

Reutters modifications of the 400-Day Clock included changes to the escapement leverage to reduce the arc of the escapement as well as adding jewels to the bearings of the movement. His new clock ran safely and most importantly very reliably.

His new clock design included a special device that would power his clock independently, using a substance that would react to the most sensitive changes in temperature and atmospheric conditions. That substance was mercury. He also designed a special glass tube similar to that of a thermometer for the mercury and encased it all inside a metal cylinder, which is now known as the Bellows.

The result of Reutters achievement was an ingenious new clock unlike any other, past or present. A timepiece that could run independently and continuously and so incredibly sensitive, that it could be rewound by the slightest fluctuations in the atmosphere, or by the slightest changes in temperature, hence the name: "Atmos Clock".

Later, due to dangers in handling and instability, the mercury in the Bellows that powered the Atmos Clock was changed to a special more stable saturated gas, known scientifically as 'Ethyl Chloride'. The technological concept of the Gas filled Atmos Bellows is a remarkable one: Inside a sealed capsule, a mixture of gas and liquid expands as the temperature rises and contracts as it falls, moving the capsule back and forth like a tiny unseen accordion. This motion is used to constantly wind the mainspring thus enabling the clock to run and keep perfect time. A small temperature variation of just one degree is sufficient for over two day's operation. Such variation occurs naturally in normal room temperature and thus without any additional sources of energy, the Atmos clock will continue to run if left untouched, "forever". Hence the term: "Living On Air".


The Marriage of Atmos and Jaeger-LeCoultre

When Reutters Atmos was in its initial production in the early thirties, the lack of enthusiasm from manufactures in general during that time made production of the Atmos clock difficult. Reutter Atmos was in production, but only in small numbers.

Legend has it, while Reutter struggled with production of his Atmos Clock, the manager of a famous Swiss watch making company LeCoultre (a company world famous for fine Swiss watches located in the French Valley of Switzerland) was strolling down a street in Paris one day and noticed one of Reutters Atmos Clocks sitting in a shop window for sale. The man was so fascinated with Reutters Atmos; he walked in and purchased it from the shop merchant.

Later, after a chance encounter between LeCoultre and Reutter he (Reutter) agreed to sell the license and eventually his Atmos Clock patent to the LeCoultre Watch Company.

At the time of LeCoultres acquisition of the Atmos patent, LeCoultre was in fierce competition with another Watch Company, Ed Jaeger of Paris. Eventually LeCoultre merged with Jaeger to form the famous watch making company: Jaeger-LeCoultre.

With the combined knowledge and expertise of their newly joined Company, Jaeger & LeCoultre poured considerable investment collective research and development into Reutter's Atmos Clock. Just a few years later, major production of the newly revamped Atmos Clock was launched under the Jaeger-LeCoultre name exclusively.

The LeCoultre Atmos Clock soon became a very fashionable, prestigious gift in Switzerland and eventually Worldwide.

As the success of both Jaeger-LeCoultre and the Atmos clock continued to grow, the company prospered and in 1979, the 500,000th Atmos Clock left the Factory in Switzerland with much celebrated fan-fair, a half a century after the first Atmos Clock patent was filed.
 

Decimal or Revolutionary time     

Decimal or Revolutionary time was adopted by decree of the National Convention on November 24, 1793. It stipulated that the Gregorian calendar should be abandoned and replaced by the Republican calendar which divided the day into ten hours each with one hundred minutes and then further sub-divided into one hundred seconds.
Although perhaps a logical 'simplification' of timekeeping the habits of the populous were difficult to change. The new system meant having to design a new dial and to this end a competition was organised to invent one that was clear and easy to read.
Despite the efforts of some of the great horological minds the system was never really adopted and clockmakers had no real reason to fully support it because their Revolutionary clocks were useless outside France which ruined their export trade.
By 1795 it was no longer compulsory to use Decimal time and even before then clocks and watches were being made with both the 'old' and 'new' systems.
Finally it was decreed that the Decimal system had proved impossible to implement properly and from January 1, 1805 French timekeeping reverted back to the traditional system.

More 1)
 

Jean Romilly 1714-1794

Romilly, Jean, Paris. Born in Geneva 1714 of a refugee father, d. 1794. Married in Paris in 1752. He is listed at the Quai Pelletier, 1752, Place Dauphine, 1772-1781 and Rue Poupee 1787-1789. Tardy records a Louis XV cartel clock signed Romilly a Paris. In 1755 he is recorded as making watches beating seconds and 1768 a marine timekeeper damaged during trials. He wrote the technical part on horlogerie in the Encyclopedic Methodique.

Object by Romilly.

Georg Frederic Roskopf  1813-1889   La Chaux de Fonds.

Georges F. Roskopf (1813-1889) was born in Germany and became a naturalized Swiss.

In 1829 he went to La Chaux de Fonds and began training in commerce with F. MAIRET & SANDOZ who dealt in ironmongery and watch parts.

In 1833 he decided to become a watchmaker and went as an apprentice to J. BIBER in La Chaux de Fonds to learn watchmaking.

Financed by his wife, he then set up in business as an établisseur, that is, a watch producer who bought the ebauche and all other parts of the watch and assembled them. He made cylinder and lever watches for export to North America and Belgium.
The watches were well made, the business was not profitable and in 1850 Roskopf sold it.

In 1851 he became joint manager of the La Chaux de Fonds branch of B. J. Guttman Frères of Wurzburg. They made English-type watches.

In 1855 Georges Roskopf set up in business with his son, Fritz Edouard, and Henri Gindraux as ROSKOPF, GINDRAUX & CO.

After two years his son opened his own business in Geneva and Gindraux went to Neuchâtel to become Director of the Watchmaking School.
Roskopf was an idealist who dreamed of making a good quality, cheap watch for working men. To accomplish this he used an old idea and reworked it, that of having the hands driven directly by the mainspring.

In 1860 he began to design such a watch which could be sold for 20 francs, and would still be of excellent quality, simple and solid. The watch had a large barrel in the center. a "Perron" pin lever escapement, and a monometallic balance. After discussions with Moritz J. Grossman he adopted the simple detached pin lever escapement.

Listing of the features for the new caliber:
1 Escapement on a platform normally using a pin lever design but possible with a lever or cyinder escapement;
2. No center wheel but a large barrel;
3. Motion work to hands direct from the barrel arbor;
4. Philippe free spring with no stopwork;
5. Button wind but with handset by finger pressure.


Roskopf met indifference and hostility among the watchmakers of the area who were still working as a home industry and who did not wish to make a watch such as he was offering. It is said, that in 1866 Roskopf ordered two boxes of ebauches from EMILE ROULET and asked GUSTAVE ROSSELET to make escapements; both refused to take his orders because of the novelty of the work. He finally succeeded in producing a watch in 1867, using ebauches and cases from the MALLERAY WATCH CO., and parts from many other makers, and having them assembled in Damprichard, Doubs, France, by M. Chatelain. The original order to MALLERAY was 2000. By the end of 1867 he was in business and by 1870 he had ordered 20,000 ebauches.
Roskopf was granted US patent No. 75,463 10 Mar. 1868, for a changeable escapement for watches (this patent said that the escapement could be adapted for use with a cylinder or lever as well as a pin pallet). Roskopf patented his watch in France with French patent No. 80611 of 25 Mar. 1868 for a watch with a type of platform escapement. He patented his designs in several countries (Belgium, No. 21988, 3 Aug. 1867) but never in Switzerland, because Switzerland did not yet have a patenting system, and because the idea had been used there before his use of it.

Through the influence of the House of BREGUET in Paris, Roskopf was able to present his watch at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1868 and won a Bronze Medal. From then on BREGUET began to send him orders. Some movements were supplied to BOREL & COURVOISIER. Other orders poured in.
The Roskopf watch was exhibited at the Amsterdam Exhibition in 1869 and won a Silver Medal.
In 1870 Georges Roskopf introduced a second design with a setting mechanism; this watch cost 25 francs. In it he reduced the number of parts, simplified the escapement fitting, and introduced an improved winding. The escapement was assembled on its own adjustable platform. The watch was SW and pin-set. In his oversize barrel he arranged to use Adrien Philippe’s (Patek,Philippe) patent free mainspring without stopworks for which he paid a royalty on each watch.

In 1873 Roskopf handed over his business to WILLE FRERES and their associates, CH. LEON SCHMID.
When Roskpof died in 1889 a number of firms claimed to be his ‚true successor‘
But WILLE FRERES actually had the rights on the firm.
WILLE FRERES and VVE CH. L. SCHMID had been using Roskopf trade mark for years before G. F. Roskopf’s death, with his permission.
By this time the idea of the Roskopf-type watch was becoming popular in Switzerland and a number of Swiss companies began making ‚Roskopf‘ watches.
In order to be really cheap, the watch had to be machine-manufactured and not so well made.
These watches were pin-levers and did not have the platform escapement.

Compiled by Tim George.
 

Julien le Roy (1686-1759), who is generally regarded as the most famous eighteenth century French clockmaker, significantly raised the standards of the Parisian clock trade. As the leader in his field his clientele included the cream of French society, not least King Louis XV and members of his court notably the Prince and Princess, the duc d’Orléans and Cardinal de Fleury. As a result of Le Roy’s friendship with the British clockmaker, Henry Sully and his senior colleague, William Blakey, a number of high quality English and Dutch makers were introduced into Parisian workshops. This as well as Le Roy’s own advances in the quest to improve accurate time measurement actively encouraged renewed life into the flagging Parisian trade.

Born in Tours, he trained under his father, Pierre Le Roy and by the age of 13 had already made his own clock. In 1699 Julien Le Roy moved to Paris, where he was apprenticed under Le Bon; it is said that while there he succeeded in making and completing a watch in only eight days. Received as a maître-horloger in 1713, he later became a juré of his guild; he also became a member and later a director of the Société des Arts. But his most important appointment began in 1739 when he was made ‘Horloger Ordinaire du Roi’ to Louis XV. He was given lodgings in the Louvre though he never occupied them. Instead he installed his son, Pierre (1717-85) and continued to operate his own business from rue de Harlay, where he remained for the rest of his life. Le Roy created exceedingly fine clocks for the King including one in a Boulle case for the Château de Fontainebleau. In 1727 he made a repeating cartel as well as two repeating watches “which are the first to have been made so that His Majesty can remove the dials Himself to see the uncovered mechanism”. The following year Le Roy applied the same principle to his repeating mantle clocks.

Le Roy’s innovations and improvements were substantial, notably his perfection of monumental clocks that showed mean and true time, of which his model at Hôtel des Missions Etrangères was exemplary. Le Roy also researched equation movements showing and chiming true time and advanced pull repeat mechanisms. He also resolved many problems to do with watchmaking; by taking the best and discarding the least satisfactory elements from both French and English clockmaking he ensured that watches were subsequently easier to construct and simpler to maintain. One aspect was his adoption of George Graham’s cylinder, which eventually resulted in reducing the watch’s thickness. George Graham was among his many admirers, who on inspecting Le Roy’s work once noted “I would like to be younger so as to make watches like this”.

Due to his unrivalled success, Le Roy was not limited by commercial constraints; for instance he nearly always made high quality watches and clocks in pairs so that the case and decoration perfectly matched. He generally chose the cases himself, which were provided by the very finest makers of his day such as Nicolas Le Sueur, André-Charles Boulle – father and son, the Caffieris, Charles Cressent, Le Cocq, Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain and Robert Osmond as well as Balthazar Lieutaud, Antoine Foullet and others. Antoine-Nicolas Martinière, Nicolas Julien and possibly Elie Barbezat generally made his dials.

Le Roy’s work can be found among the world’s greatest collections including the Musées du Louvre, Cognacq-Jay, Jacquemart-André and Petit Palais in Paris. Other examples are housed at Château de Versailles, at the Victoria and Albert Museum and Guildhall in London and at Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire. The Musée d’Horlogerie, La Chaux-de-Fonds and Museum der Zeitmessung Bayer, Zurich as well as the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam and Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels all house his work. As do the Museum für Kunsthandwerck, Dresden, the National Museum Stockholm and Musea Nacional de Arte Antigua, Lisbon. Works by Le Roy in American collections include the J. P. Getty Museum, California; the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore and the Detroit Institute of Art.

Like their father, Le Roy’s four sons all excelled in their field, one became a physician, one a chemist and another an architect and antiquarian. His eldest son, Pierre Le Roy was a brilliant clockmaker in his own right and one of the first to make a successful marine timekeeper.
 

Julien le Roy   1686-1759

2) Sèvres Porcelain
The manufactory was founded to the east of Paris in the disused royal château of Vincennes, late in 1739-40. It was not until 1756 that it moved to the village of Sèvres, west of Paris, en route to King Louis XV's palace of Versailles. It was also adjacent to his mistress' own château at Bellevue. She was Madame de Pompadour, who was a great lover of Sèvres porcelain. She was delighted with the factory's new location - she knew she could entice Louis to take a greater interest in it when it was so near their own residences. Indeed, the King became such a keen patron of the factory that, when it ran into financial difficulties, he bought out the shareholders and became the sole proprietor. The factory remained a royal enterprise until the French Revolution, when it was nationalised. It is still in production today.

The Wallace Collection holds the finest museum collection of Sèvres in the world. Like the other greatest collections, the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, and the Rothschild Collection at Waddeson Manor, they were formed in the nineteenth century, largely as a result of the French Revolution when so many works of art came on to the market.


More 1)
 

Thomire

1) Pierre-Philippe Thomire was the greatest craftsman of his age to work in gilt bronze. He was patronised by Louis XVI, Napoleon and Louis XVIII as well as foreign monarchy and
aristocracy. Born in Paris, he began his training under the sculptors J-A. Houdon and A. Pajou at the Academic St. Luc, Paris and then followed his fathers profession as a fondeur-ciseleur. He studied under the great fondeur-doreur, Pierre Gouthiere (1732-1813/14), from whom he acquired the most refined skills in chasing and gilding, in particular matt gilding 'dorure au matt', to produce a subtle grainy satin-like finish. Appointed a maitre-fondeur in 1772, he set up his own business in 1776 following the collaboration with J-L. Prieur in the decoration of the coronation coach for Louis XVI. Other royal commissions followed, for instance he supplied gilt bronze chenets with flaming urns and sphinxes for the Louvre in 1786. In 1788 he supplied a fine fire grate and pair of columns to an English gentleman, purchased in 1987 by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He was also appointed modeller to the Royal Sevres porcelain factory in 1783.
During the Revolution, Thomire prudently turned to manufacture of arms and ammunition but returned to decorative bronzes after the Consulate and was soon employing about 800 men. His pre-Revolutionary success was subsequently overshadowed by his fame during the Empire, when he supplied substantial commissions to the Imperial court and was appointed ciceleur de 1'Empereur in 1809. His art proved to be some of the purest and finest expression of the Empire style (promoted by Percier and Fontaine) such as his Vase de Marriage de 1'Empereur (Versailles). He also created other monumental Greek shaped urns, which were delicately modelled with crisp foliage and figures in low relief as well as magnificent centre-pieces or candelabra supported by winged Victories. In 1811 Thomire collaborated with imperial goldsmith, J-B-C. Odiot to make the cradle for the King of Rome after a design by P-P. Prud'hon (Schatzkammer, Vienna). He also worked the bronze for another Imperial cradle (Fontainebleau).
Thomire engaged in a number of important collaborations; this was as much due to the unparalleled quality of his castings as well as the pre-Revolutionary guild restrictions upon all craftsmen such as furniture, porcelain and clockmakers. For instance he provided a number of fine gilt bronze mounts to the leading ebenistes, such as G. Benneman, F. Schwerdfeger and particularly to A. Weisweiler. He also supplied mounts for Sevres porcelain clock cases to house movements by the finest Parisian clockmakers, such as one by Robert Robin, 1788 (in the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris). After the Revolution, Thomire produced a number of figural clock cases directly inspired by famous Neoclassical sculptures or paintings. Two famous examples in the British Royal Collection are his 'Oath ofHoratii' and 'Rape of the Sabine Clock'; both adapted from paintings by the leading Neo-classical master, J-L. David. At other times Thomire featured Greek heroes such as the Apollo Clock' or others showing Father Time, who carries a clock upon his shoulder (examples of both were purchased by King George IV). The 'Psyche and Cupid Clock' is one of his most beautiful and rarest works, known examples can be found at the Hermitage, Leningrad, the Spanish Royal Collection, Madrid and presently on show at the Richard Redding Gallery. After the Restoration, Thomire enjoyed the patronage of the Bourbons and in 1834 was awarded the Legion d'Honneur by Louis Philippe. He retired in ; 1823 but continued to make occasional sculptures. His firm Thomire et Cie. was continued by his two sons.

2) Pierre-Philippe Thomire (died 1843) elected maître-fondeur in 1772. He studied sculpture at the Academie of Saint-Luc, where his talent was noted by Houdon. He worked from 1774 with Gouthière and with Prieur and opened his own workshop in 1776. The revolution interrupted his oeuvre, but the Empire period brought renewed prosperity, by working in association with Jacob-Desmalter and the Emperor's patronage. Thomire relinquished control of his business to his sons-in-law in 1823 and the firm ceased to trade in 1852.

 

Tourbillon.
 
A. L. Breguet's invention (patented in 1801) for neutralising the positional (vertical) errors inherent in a watch. The escapement is mounted in a revolving carriage or cage with the result that the positional errors are repeated (with a cancelling-out effect) in every revolution of the carriage. The speed of revolution of the carriage depended on the lay-out. In some instances the escape wheel pinion turns about the fixed fourth wheel, the carriage revolving once in a minute, and in others the revolution is made in four or six minutes. A 'tourbillon watch' is not a watch with a special kind of escapement since it may have either a lever or a detent escapement.

Pieter Visbach   (Visbagh)

Pieter Visbach (b. 1634, a. 1646, m 1688, d.1722), who also spelled his name as Visbagh, was born in The Hague and apprenticed (1646-1652) to Salomon Coster who made the first pendulum clocks for Huygens ('met privilege') in 1657. Visbagh moved to Middelburg but returned upon Salomon Coster’s death (1659) and took over his house and workshop, at the eastside of the Toorenstraat, from the widow in november 1660. For the next 30 years Pieter Visbagh was the most prominent clockmaker of The Hague. After the Dutch Clockmakers’ Guild was founded in 1688, he acted as its first Master. Pieter Visbagh died in 1722 but had probably retired much earlier.
 

Joseph Winnerl  1799-1886