Henry Delolme

Born in Braunschweig (Brunswick), Lower Saxony, in 1799, Henry Delolme was the youngest son of horologist Antoine Nicolas Delolme. The name Delolme is associated primarily with that part of south west France abutting the Swiss watchmaking region centred on Geneva.  It is logical to conclude that the Delolme family was of French origin but relocated progressively for reasons of trade during the seventeenth/eighteenth centuries to Switzerland and subsequently to the central German state.

Antoine gained a reputation for high quality work and was appointed Clockmaker to the Braunschweig Court in the 1780s.  The City experienced considerable turmoil during the early decades of the nineteenth century, being occupied by the French as a Napoleonic conquest in 1806.  Subsequently, the Congress of Vienna established a Duchy of Braunschweig, with the City as its capital.  The regime was notably illiberal, (resulting in 1830 in an uprising and the Duke’s (Charles) replacement by his brother William,) and this was no doubt the main reason why the Delolme family (and others of their like) emigrated around 1810.  Antoine’s later clocks are signed Delolme, Paris, whilst by circa 1827 Henry had set up business in London.  It is likely that Henry formed a partiality for the French in deference to his family’s origins and his own experience during his brief period as a teenager residing in Paris, perhaps as their capital offered a welcoming milieu much in contrast with the repressions and conflicts he had observed in the city of his birth.   The earliest documentary evidence for Henry’s residence in England has been found in the archive (Volume 515) of the insurers, Sun Life, with the entry:

23 January 1827, 1054306, Henry Delolme, 23 Rathbone St., Watchmaker.  On his household goods wearing apparel printed books and plate in his now dwelling house only situate as aforesaid brick, £80 £80. Stock utensils therein only £220, £220, £300.

The next extant record results from his marriage in 1829 to Amelia Lebarthe.  A newspaper report of the theft of watches from Delolme refers to the Business’s location at Rathbone Place but does not clarify the apparent anomaly regarding the building’s number – no.23 in the insurance record, but always no.48 elsewhere.

Fig.1 Cylinder pocket watch

by Antoine Delolme c1820.

Courtesy of Dr Crott Auktionen

Henry and Amelia had six children: John Lewis Anthony, born 18-10-1829, Henry, born 4-01-1833, (died aged 11 months), Jules Charles, born 4-01-1836, Charles John, born 11-09-1837 (d. 1915); Henrietta Charlotte, born 15-03-1839 (married Walter Gorges (Brunswick) 10-10-1867); Louise Gustave, born 08-07-1841.  Charles John initially trained to become a civil engineer, but by 1871 he was assisting in his Father’s business and is referred to as a watchmaker in the 1881 Census return.  The family home and business premises were, as above, at 48 Rathbone Place, which is a turning off the north side of Oxford Street, close to the major junction with Tottenham Court Road.

The 1842 edition of Robson’s London Directory features the listing: 48 Rathbone Place – Henry Delolme, watchmaker and importer of Parisian clocks and Musical Boxes and Importers of Geneva Watch Tools and Materials.  Throughout that decade Delolme developed the quality and range of his products.  Notably, he began to offer Marine Chronometers, for which at that time there was ready and increasing demand in accordance with the navigational needs of an expanding shipping industry driven by global trading.  Thus, by 1851, Delolme’s exhibits in the Great Exhibition included, in addition to seven gold Pocket Watches, two Marine Chronometers.  The latter were based on rough movements sourced from the Prescot (Lancashire) manufactories.  Probably informed by his Continental heritage, he was differentiating his Pocket Watches from those of his more traditional English competitors by seeking to make them as unbulky as possible.  In reviewing his exhibits, a newspaper report observed:

Mr. Delom (sic), of 48 Rathbone-place, exhibits a handsome collection of watches, containing many improvements in construction, the result of his long scientific experience.  By dispensing with the fusee he obtains more room for the other works, and is thus enabled to comply with the present taste for flat watches without any sacrifice of strength or durability.  The duty of the fusee in regulating the inequality of the mainspring is performed by an ingenious contrivance which he very learnedly calls an ‘isochrone pendulum spring’ – this sonorous epithet being the only part of his work which is not entirely of English manufacture.

(Note:  There’s some ‘marketing-speak at play here in order to suggest novelty and a unique feature: after all, as long ago as 1782, John Arnold’s patent, #1328, was summarised as being applicable to, ‘Escapement and balance, to compensate the effects of heat and cold in pocket-chronometers or watches, also for incurvating the two ends of the helical spring, to render the expansion and contraction of the spring concentric with the centre of the balance.’)

Regarding his Chronometers, Delolme was bracketed with some of the most renowned English makers:

In marine and pocket chronometers we have a very creditable display of first-rate workmanship . . . we may mention the well known names of Arnold, Frodsham, Barraud, Dent, Delolme, Gowland. (Morning Chronicle, 9 May 1851)

Around this date Delolme adopted an image of a Marine Chronometer for his advertisement:

Courtesy www.925-1000.com

This is earliest extant Delolme Marine Chronometer currently found:

Courtesy eBay member ‘martawatch’

It has a 2-day movement with Earnshaw-type spring detent escapement.  Numbered 501, it is probable that this is an example of Delolme’s output considerably prior to his participation in the Great Exhibition.  The highest number extant is 1002.  In Chronometer Makers of the World, Tony Mercer indicates a known movement number of 2248 with date attribution of 1899, (9 years after Henry’s death).  He also records examples in a movement number range of 96 to 1355.  Mercer also wrote of Delolme, intriguingly, ‘Honest and straightforward but lost all his money; also, ‘George Oram, chronometer maker, collected funds to his modest requirements.’  There is, however, no record of a formal business partnership involving Delolme and Oram, his contemporary and proprietor of a commercially successful horological business based at Wilmington Square, Clerkenwell.  But whether or not Delolme made the most financially of his talents, the Business was substantial enough to support the employment of four watchmakers.

And beyond his own enterprise he had a care and concern for people employed in the Trade.  With the difficulties English watchmakers experienced in the mid-nineteenth century, especially as a result of loss of market share consequent on the popularity of imported products from Switzerland and America, came a desire by the more successful ‘names’ to alleviate hardship in the Trade’s workforce.  In particular there was a need for accommodation for elderly practitioners who could no longer work and/or afford to rent a home or premises.  As a partial solution, a community of alms houses in New Southgate, known as the Clock and Watch Maker’s Asylum was established in 1857.  Henry was a noted, prominent attender at the Asylum’s inaugural dinner held at the Albion Tavern, Aldersgate Street.

That Delolme had a finely developed social conscience is further indicated by his association with the French Protestant Evangelical Church.  Henry was nominated as a trustee in 1867. He subsequently took on the role of Treasurer to safeguard the funds sought by charitable appeals, an example of which being:

Mission of the French Protestant Evangelical Church in Bayswater:  This mission, by means of which large numbers of foreigners are every year in many ways benefitted, irrespective of creed or nationality, stands in deep need of aid at this present time.  The mission supports a deaconess and a Bible-woman to visit among the foreign population, and administer to their bodily as well as their higher wants.  This mission is without any endowment whatever.

The success of the Great Exhibition inspired further similar international fairs elsewhere in mid-nineteenth century America and Europe.  It also left an appetite for a repeat in London and the realisation of this in 1862 was partly funded by profits from the 1851 event.  Delolme’s Establishment status was affirmed by his appointment to the Exhibition’s horological department planning committee along with elite clockmakers Cole, Webster, Bennett and Upjohn, meeting at the organising Society of Arts’ premises in the Adelphi in August 1861.

The Exhibition opened in Kensington in May of the following year with Delolme again contributing an impressive range of watches and clocks, reviewed as follows:

Mr Delolme exhibits many specimens, including marine chronometers, one of them with metallic mechanical thermometer; astronomical regulator, in plate-glass and ormolu case of entirely new design, with gravity escapement; the pendulum is suspended on friction rollers.  There are also transparent eight-day clocks, for night and day, with invisible movements of novel construction, and lighted by the usual night light; a watch, with metallic thermometer; and a first-class English independent seconds watch, with one train only, being on the principle of the remontoir escapement.

(The ‘remontoir’ solution to the problem of varying input force to the balance is succinctly summarized in Hodinkee’s Watch 101, https://www.hodinkee.com/watch101/remontoir-degalite.  Watch 101 is also instructive in regard to the tourbillon feature seen in the chronometer illustrated below.)

Delolme received a medal in recognition of the excellence of his exhibits.

An example of Delolme’s later production appeared in the Dr Crott 91 Auction sales catalogue, May 2015.  This is attributed with number 8820 and dated to circa1875:

Courtesy of Dr Crott Auktionen

The specification is impressive, summarised in the catalogue:

A heavy hunting case pocket watch with minute tourbillon.  Case: 18k gold. Tiered, engine-turned, a goutte, gold dome with engraving.  Dial: enamel, radial Roman hours, auxiliary seconds, paste-set hands.  Movm,: bridge movement, keywind, signed, nickel-plated, decorated, chain/fusee with Harrison’s maintaining power, finely executed mirror-polished steel tourbillon cage, screwed gold chatons, pivoted detent escapement, gold screw compensation balance, pink gold train, freesprung blued balance spring.

Henry continued at the helm of the Business into his eighties – still recorded as a watchmaker (master), not a retired watchmaker – in the 1881 Census.  As mentioned earlier, son Charles, age 44, is on the same census return and described as a watchmaker.  There is no evidence to suggest that he assumed control of the Business before Henry’s death in 1890.  Equally, with the exception of Mercer’s citing of number 2248/1899, it does not appear that the Delolme name continued to appear on watches made after that date.  So Henry’s brand did not substantially survive him, but during his lifetime it was one which represented technical quality and aesthetic excellence.

The Great Exhibition

At the same time as the decline of the English watchmaking trade was progressing, two major exhibitions were mounted in London extolling the quality of British commercial enterprise.  This was certainly appropriate in regard to the manufacture of chronometers in London, but, as far as more mundane pocket watches were concerned, the wares displayed by many of the exhibitors had been made on the continental mainland.  Thus the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the International Exhibition of 1862, tended to represent British horological excellence increasingly in the form of retailing, rather than of manufacturing, expertise.

The Great Exhibition, 1851, (Crystal Palace):

© Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The event is well summarised in the V&A’s website, here. 

Horological exhibits are listed in the Catalogue in the section, ‘Class 10. Philosophical, Musical, Horological, and Surgical Instruments.’  47 entries relate to makers/vendors of pocket watches/chronometers, including:

1. Bennett, J. 65 Cheapside, Inv and Manu. . . . Marine chronometer.  Bennett’s model watch, on a magnified scale; constructed to show the most compact form of the modern watch, with all the recent improvements.  For more on Bennett, see The Old Watchword, post November 2015, here. 

John Bennett was born in 1814.  His parents, John and Elizabeth were watchmakers, living and working in Greenwich.  John Jnr carried on after their deaths, moving to the City in 1846 with premises at 65 Cheapside.  He eventually expanded these by taking over no. 64 and also had a presence at 62 Cornhill.  The business was successful and Bennett further elevated his status by becoming a councillor in the 1860s and a sheriff in 1871.  He was knighted in 1872.

Bennett’s business was attuned to the prevailing conditions with considerable savvy.  He sought to cut manufacturing costs as a response to the erosion of English makers’ market share resulting from the price competitiveness of Swiss imports, (which he decried), yet he had no compunction about utilising Swiss movements himself in his products.  Equally, he was energetic in his approach to marketing, his press advertising being especially prolific, for example: 

19. Delolme, H. 48 Rathbone Pl. Oxford St. Des. And Manu. – Gold watches, manufactured entirely in England.  Stethometer.  Marine chronometer.  I completed a study of Delolme’s life and work in February 2018.  Notice the difference in approach to the imports issue from that of Bennett whereby Delolme seeks to make an unconditional virtue of the fact that his products are, ‘manufactured entirely in England.’

Delolme did not however create his watches in London from scratch.  He utilised rough movements sourced from the Prescot (Lancashire) manufactories.  The London Daily News, 15 September 1851, reported Delolme’s exhibits as follows:

Mr. Delom (sic), of 48 Rathbone-place, exhibits a handsome collection of watches, containing many improvements in construction, the result of his long scientific experience.  By dispensing with the fusee he obtains more room for the other works, and is thus enabled to comply with the present taste for flat watches without any sacrifice of strength or durability.  The duty of the fusee in regulating the inequality of the mainspring is performed by an ingenious contrivance which he very learnedly calls an ‘isochrone pendulum spring’ – this sonorous epithet being the only part of his work which is not entirely of English manufacture.

Notice that Delolme lacked Bennett’s assertive marketing instinct – with modesty he refers to his prices as being, ‘comparatively moderate.’  His work though could be superlative, as seen, for example, in this Marine chronometer, #850, (c-1857):

Courtesy of Ben Wright Clocks

34. Barraud & Lund, 41 Cornhill, Inv and Manu – Marine chronometer with a model of a newly-invented compensation–balance.  Common marine chronometer.  Small gold pocket chronometer.

A fully illustrated overview of the firms involving members of the Barraud family over their long period of commercial activity – from c1840 through to the twentieth century – is provided here. 

Barraud Marine chronometers were of especially good quality and a considerable number were purchased by the Admiralty.  The auxiliary compensation invention referred to in the Exhibition Catalogue text was unusual in that it was based simply on a weight affecting the balance wheel.

Shown below is a pocket chronometer, #3/127, (1869):

Courtesy of Sotheby’s

35. Parkinson & Frodsham, 4 Change Alley, Cornhill, Manu – Astronomical clock, with mercurial pendulum, eight-day chronometer, lever watches, pocket chronometers, &c.

The highly respected partnership of William Parkinson and William Frodsham was established at 4 Change Alley in 1801 and was located there until 1842.  The business remained active, at Budge Row until 1947 – now that is longevity!

William Frodsham became an eminent spokesman for the English watchmaking trade – a natural development from his fulfilment of the role of Master of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers in 1837/8.  In 1842 Frodsham was a leading opponent of the proposed British Watch and Clockmaking Company, by which Pierre Frederic Ingold intended to establish modern factory-model manufacturing as a means of making English products price-competitive with Swiss imports.

The Frodsham family became one of the very most important in British horological history.  William’s son, Charles, was already a successful maker in his own right by the time of the Great Exhibition, at which he was awarded a first class medal, his entry in the Catalogue reading:

57. Frodsham, C. 84 Strand, Manu. – Astronomical clock.  Marine chronometers.  Gold pocket chronometers and lever watches. The double rotary escapement.  Day of the month watch.  Specimen of gold lever watches, with the split-centre second’s-hand movement.  Railway watches.  Portable chime and other clocks, &c.

Charles Frodsham & Co Ltd trades contemporarily and on its website claims to be ‘the longest continuously trading firm of chronometer manufacturers in the world . . .’  Charles became every bit as influential as his father, and followed him as Master of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers.

Charles was just one of William’s four sons, the others being, Henry, George and John, and they, and their descendants, forged careers in the Trade, helping to establish several firms: Frodsham & Co., G. E. Frodsham, Frodsham & Baker, Frodsham & Keen, Arnold & Frodsham.

This a typically fine deck watch by Parkinson & Frodsham, #4436, (c-1856):

Courtesy of Auktionen Dr. Crott

55. Dent, E. J. 61 Strand, 33 Cockspur St. and 34 Royal Exchange, Manu. – Large assortment of ladies and gentlemen’s superior watches.  Marine chronometer, with a glass balance-spring, glass balance, and compensation, for variation of temperature, of platina and silver.  Azimuth and altitude compass.  Dipleidscope.  Astronomical and other clocks, &c.

Edward John Dent, though not its original inventor, developed the dipleidoscope for practical use and patented it in 1843.  It is a device which supports the accurate setting of timepieces by observation of the position of the sun or moon.  As might readily be imagined, complex instructions were necessary, and Dent wrote a detailed user’s manual:

Dent’s business and more conventional – and very fine – products are covered in the 2015 post here, and here. His Marine chronometers were considered to be first class.  This example, dating from c-1850 is #2254:

Courtesy of FJ & RD Story Antique Clocks

5. Watkins, A. Inv. And Manu. – Eight day self-acting repeating chronometer, comprising 200 pieces of mechanism.  Small three-quarter plate chronometers, with hard cylindrical springs, jewelled in every hole.

My study of Watkins was published in the April and May 2016 issues of Clocks Magazine.  I have also featured his work here in the 2016 posts, here, and here. 

In a future post here I will look at some of the watchmakers represented at the 1862 International Exhibition.

A Dodgy Turpin? - Surely Not

In 2014 Daniel Alexander QC heard an appeal concerning a dispute involving trade marks.  Two companies operating in the food wholesaling sector had been at loggerheads over the use of very similar corporate I.D. logos.  The fact that one of the companies was run by the uncle of the other’s owner only seemed to make the conflict all the more bitter.  In denying the appeal, Mr Alexander cited a ‘common ancestor’ precedent, ‘the most well-known example of this being the 1861 case of Dent v Turpin.  Edward Dent had two clock shops in London and had bequeathed one each to his two stepsons.  Both traded legitimately as ‘Dent’, and it is clear that neither could have brought an action to stop the other.  Either or both was entitled to bring an action to stop a third party, Mr Turpin, from using the Dent name.’  The Times on 24 April 1861 reported:

The defendants, Henry and George Turpin, were watchmakers at 62 Banner-street, St. Luke’s, Middlesex, and had been in the habit of placing the words “Dent, London,” upon watches manufactured by them.  These watches were sold by Turpin Brothers to the other defendants, who carried on business as general export merchants, and had exported several of the watches to the Cape of Good Hope. 

The Dent name was a byword for quality and integrity and embraced a watchmaking dynasty which excelled throughout the nineteenth century.  For the first 54 years, the main business, founded by Edward, was managed by himself and members of his family.  Subsequently trading under various ownerships – and until the 1920s as two enterprises: ‘E. Dent’ and ‘M.F. Dent’ - the business has maintained a continuous commercial presence through to the present day.  A comprehensive summary of the company’s history is set out at http://www.dentlondon.com/about/history.php  

Notice of the injunction, (in this instance on behalf of the M.F. ‘branch’ of the business), was published in The Times, for example on 19 July 1861:

 

DENT’s CHRONOMETERS, Watches, and Clocks – Caution – Her Majesty’s High Court of Chancery, on the 11^th of July, 1861, granted a perpetual INJUNCTION, restraining Henry William Turpin, George Hathaway Turpin and Adolphe Mosenthal respectively, from manufacturing any watches marked with the name of “Dent,” and from selling or exporting, or causing to be sold or exported for sale, any watches made and marked with the name of “Dent” by them or by their order or direction.  Manufacturers and others are hereby cautioned against using the name or trade mark of “Dent.”

TUCKER and NEW, 25 Clement’s-lane, city, Solicitors for M.F. Dent, 33 and 34 Cockspur-street, Charing-cross, London.

With the Dent v Turpin action in mind, let’s consider why the Dent name would be one the defendants thought worth ‘borrowing’ in order to enhance the value of their products.  Dent began working as an apprentice to his cousin, Richard Rippon.  The early years of his career were especially important in establishing his credentials in the top quality sector of the Trade – he worked for two of the best: Vulliamy & Son and Barraud & Son, and with both he was a specialist in complications and chronometer movements.  This built a reputation good enough to induce the highly regarded John Arnold to take Dent into partnership.  Thus, from 1830, as half of Arnold & Dent, Edward was associated with the very best quality chronometers being made in England – and, therefore, the world.  The key elements of Dent’s prestige standing in the early Victorian era are summarised in the table below:

 

The Turpin business was begun by Benjamin around 1817 at 62 Banner Street, which runs parallel with and just south of Old Street in the St Luke’s area of London.  Benjamin was born circa 1791, within a year or two of Edward Dent.  Although Benjamin’s country of origin is unknown, it is notable that his sons sought Naturalisation in 1854, in the process of which their Jewish faith was recorded. 

 

Benjamin’s output does not seem to have been noteworthy and I have been unable to find any extant examples.  He died in 1842, and his widow, Susannah, carried on the business to 1849.  His sons, George (1826-76) and Henry (1827-85) then took over, trading as Turpin Bros.  The Business was listed at Banner Street through to the 1880s, for example in the category, ‘Watch Manufacturers to the Trade’, in Collinson’s Directory of 1861.  Britten’s notes that they exported full plate watches, including a model called ‘Railway Timekeeper’, to America.  This ‘type’ is generic – it was applied to relatively cheap/simple timepieces, often of Swiss/Austrian origin.  Bearing in mind the Dent injunction, it’s fair to say that Turpin Bros could be seen as again indulging in a spot of deception because, as with most of these ‘Railway Timekeepers,’ there was an implied superior standard of accuracy, (associated with the idea that the railways then were very well and punctually operated), which the movement was not in fact good enough to deliver. 

This is a gold hunter – date unknown – by Turpin Brothers:

 

 

And this open face lever, #13029, dates from 1874:

 

 

Neither, I’m afraid bears comparison with a Dent watch!  No wonder the Dent companies were keen to ensure that their name didn’t appear on such mediocre timepieces.