A recurring interest of mine is in watchmakers who
acquired the expensive habit of wanting to innovate rather than manufacture
readily marketable conventional timepieces.
Time and again this led to the maker having more substantial references
in the Bankruptcy Notices section of such as The Gazette than in the horological records published by Britten,
Baillie and Loomes. Sigismund Rentzsch
is a bit different: the novelty of some of his technology was a factor in his
achieving the accolade, ‘King’s Clock and Watch-maker in ordinary’, and his
business was sufficiently profitable to support a personal ‘productivity’ which
resulted in a family that included no less than fifteen children! However, his second wife, Mary, who bore
eleven of the offspring, continuing the business (at 13 Regent’s Street) after
Sigismund’s death, did find herself obliged to make a bankruptcy assignment in
September 1848.
After a good deal of research I am finalising a full
article on Rentzsch’s life and work. Meanwhile,
I notice that David Penney has a nice-looking cylinder for sale on his Antique
Watch Store website:
