The Wild West . . . in South East London

If you ever have reason to start looking into the Frodsham horological dynasty you may, as I did, become excited to happen upon Edward, of that ilk.  Whilst most of the family, from William James (b.1778) through to Parkinson & Frodsham, (surviving to 1947), remained London-based, establishing and developing watchmaking businesses of great repute, this Edward was to be found in the 1870s in Wyoming, U.S.  Described as a jeweller by trade, he apparently had a fearsome temper and was good with a gun.  A succinct pen portrait goes like this: Imprisoned for having shot dead a man who had been having an affair with his wife.  On release was soon in a gunfight at Laramie, killed another man, was arrested, then bailed, moved to Leadville, killed again, for which he was arrested and put into jail, from which he was seized by vigilantes . . . and lynched by them!

Meanwhile, back in England, George Frodsham was in 1876, if a little less extravagantly, also flouting the Law: he was summoned for travelling 2^nd Class on the Great Eastern Railway with a 3^rd Class ticket.

But if George’ delinquency was mild in comparison with Edward’s, one of his fellow London watchmakers, Nathaniel Wegg, would have been quite at home in the gun-toting Wild West.  In 1885 Nat shot a man attempting to break into his watch/jewellery shop in Deptford.  A little reminiscent of Dirty Harry’s line, ‘you've got to ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?,’ Nat shouted to the wounded burglar, ‘How did you like it? . . . I have another ready for you.’  And while at the movies, Nat’s approach reminds me of Paul Kersey in Michael Winner’s Death Wish, not only for his liking to be tooled-up, but also as a one man judicial operation, as illustrated by this report in the Kentish Mercury, 14 May 1881:

Wegg is certainly proving to be an interesting subject and my article on his life and business is nearing completion.  However, examples of his work are very hard to find.  So, if you have a Wegg watch – or a photograph/description of one – I’d be very grateful to hear from you.

The Bracebridges

The Bracebridges were watchmakers active in the late eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth centuries.  Traditional horological reference resources – Britten’s , Baillie’s and Loomes – list three makers with this name, but I have identified five, in three generations.

The line begins with Edward.  Britten’s records working dates of 1799–1818, with the address, 8 Red Lion Street, Clerkenwell.  Baillie adds that Edward was in partnership with William Pleace.  There is little more than can be said about Edward.  The earliest possible reference to him is October 1766, when an Edward Bracebridge gave evidence in an Old Bailey trial concerning a larceny in Clerkenwell.  Given the locality and that the profession of a fellow witness, James Upjohn, is given as a watchmaker, it is likely that this is ‘our’ Bracebridge.  Certainly relevant is a Sun Life Insurance record from 1787 which refers to cover for the beer copper of one Alex. Ruff, ‘at Mr Bracebridge’s Watchmaker opp., the small pox hospital in Cold Bath Fields’, (an area close to the Mount Pleasant Royal Mail centre).  The Hospital was demolished and replaced by a prison which opened in 1794.  This institution, incidentally, represents a link to one of Edward’s sons in the early nineteenth century.

I believe Edward had two sons, James and Edward Charles.  James would have been born circa 1788-92 and died circa 1849.  This documentary reference to James is from the Sussex Advertiser, 27 March 1826:

Cornelius Muzzell’s Affairs: Notice is hereby Given, that Cornelius Muzzell, of Horsham, in the county of Sussex, Clock and Silversmith, hath, by indenture bearing date the 5^th day of November, 1825, assigned all his Estate and Effects to James Troup, of Cheapside, in the city of London, Silversmith; James Bracebridge of Red Lion Street, Clerkenwell, in the county of Middlesex, Watchmaker and Edward Walker, of Red Lion Street, Clerkenwell aforesaid, Ironmonger, in trust for themselves, and such other Creditors of the said Cornelius Muzzell, as shall, on or before the 5^th day of May next, agree to accept the Dividend or Composition arising under the trusts of the said Assignment, in full of their respective debts, - And further Notice is hereby given, that the said Deed of Assignment is left at our Office for the inspection and signature of the Creditors.  Sheppard, Thomas and Lepard.  Cloak Lane, London, 18^th March 1826.

Another reference is of much greater horological significance.  When Pierre-Frederick Ingold attempted to set up industrialised watch production in 1842 he encountered staunch opposition from London’s traditional watchmaking trade.  Rather than seeing Ingold’s British Watch & Clock Company as an important element in combating the insurgent Swiss and American industries, the Trade perceived it as a further threat and petitioned Parliament for legislation to deny Ingold’s right to raise capital for the new company.

James took a prominent part in a meeting of the Clockmakers, as reported in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 2 April 1843.  The previous Tuesday over 2,000 tradespeople met at the Crown and Anchor, “to take into consideration the best means to be adopted in reference to a bill now lying before Parliament to incorporate a new company calling themselves The British Watch & Clock-making Company . . “  He opened the meeting and seconded the resolution, which was to oppose the establishment of the proposed new company – this posture being maintained and Ingold’s initiative eventually defeated.

Edward Charles was born circa 1790, evidenced by a record of admission to St Paul’s School in 1800, his age being shown as ten.  At the age of twenty Edward Charles attained the Freedom of London, a privilege passed on to him by convention as a result of his father’s entitlement to the honour.

Edward Charles’s name appears on a list of jurors for a very significant London trial in 1820.  His suitability to sit on the jury was successfully challenged by the Crown and he therefore took no part in the proceedings.  However, this trial, (of the ‘Cato Street conspirators’), is of general interest as it resulted in the last instance of men found guilty of treason being subject to an execution in which they were hanged and beheaded, (a diminution of the ‘hanged, drawn and quartered’ punishment which had originated in the reign of Henry III).  They had been confined in the Cold Bath prison mentioned above in connection with Edward.

That Edward Charles – in partnership with brother James - was occupying the familiar Red Lion Street premises is confirmed by an entry in the 1825 issue of Pigot’s Directory.  That he was prospering is perhaps suggested by his having his – and his wife, Philippa’s – portrait painted in 1839 by John Samuel Agar, an artist of moderate repute and for a time President of the Society of Engravers.

The business, styled as Edward Charles Bracebridge & Co is evident in various directories with the dates 1851-81.  The primary address remained 8 Red Lion Street, in 1862 a shop was trading at 119 New Bond Street, managed by Charles Roe.  The family residence was 6 Barnsbury Villas, Liverpool Road, Islington.

Edward Charles and Philippa had two sons, James (James II), circa 1823-92, and Edward Gilbert, 1822-99.  James II proved to be the more high profile outside the family business itself – he served as Treasurer to the Watch and Clockmakers Benevolent Institute and was this body’s representative at the funeral of Charles Frodsham in 1871.

James himself eventually found his health failing and in the 1 August 1891 issue of The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith it was reported:

. . . Mr. James Bracebridge is retiring from the business which he has carried on for many years as watch manufacturer in Clerkenwell, under the style of E. C. Bracebridge and Co.  Mr. Bracebridge has appointed his nephew, Mr. F. Bracebridge Mills, to settle his affairs. There is, we believe, some likelihood that Mr. T. D. Wright, who for many years has held the post of manager to Mr. Bracebridge, will continue the business, and in this event there is no doubt that the reputation the firm has long enjoyed will be fully maintained in Mr. Wright's hands.

Edward Gilbert’s role in the business is not clear.  One of the few references to him is a record of a donation of £10.10s. to the North London Consumption Hospital in 1896, so one might conclude that he, or a close family member suffered with this condition which was all too prevalent in late nineteenth century London.

Thomas Wright formed a partnership with William Craighead to carry on the business at Red Lion Street from 1891.  Wright became very well known in wider horological circles and it was his proposal for the format of British Summer Time clocks adjustment that we use to this day.

I have traced eleven extant Bracebridge watches.  Attribution to specific members of the family is difficult because of some missing movement numbers, some re-cases and un hallmarked cases.  At least three sets of 4 digit movement numbers seem to have been used, with an apparently relatively consistent range between 1823 - #5882 and 1850 - #8935.  A five digit #38931 is dated to 1865 and another, #12741, is in a silver case hallmarked for 1892.

Perhaps the most attractive is #5882, a repeater in 18ct Gold Case made by Louis Comtesse:

Courtesy of Matthew Barton Ltd

The British Museum holds a Bracebridge movement.  Circa1865, this features a Savage-two-pin lever escapement and utilises a keyless winding mechanism:

© Trustees of the British Museum

English Watch Work (BHI Exhibition, 1873)

 

ENGLISH WATCH WORK

An interesting, though small, Exhibition of English watch work has been on view during the past week, and will remain on view until the 22^nd inst. Between the hours of 11 a.m. and 9 p.m., at 39 Northampton-square, the house of the British Horological Institute.  It is, perhaps, necessary to say that Northampton-square is in Clerkenwell, between St. John-street and the Goswell-road and a few minutes’ walk from the Farringdon-street station of the Metropolitan Railway.  The British Horological Institute is a society which has been formed for the purpose of maintaining the old pre-eminence of British watchmaking, and of assisting British watchmakers to hold their own against foreign competition.  It is under the presidency of Mr. E.B. Denison, Q.C., and its operations have been the establishment of a monthly horological journal, of classes for the technical education of apprentices to the trade, and of Exhibitions, of which the present is the first, of specimens of watch work of the highest quality.

  

Here, above, is the introduction to an article printed in The Times on 18 November 1873. 

The British Horological Institute had been founded fifteen years earlier.  Its purpose was primarily to support English makers in their endeavours to hold their own against the increasingly successful activities of ‘foreign competition’.  By the 1870s the situation had become dire.  In a context of extreme conservatism, the English trade had made no significant progress in improving productivity and cost effectiveness since the failure in 1845 of Pierre Frederic Ingold’s initiative to introduce ‘industrial’ manufacturing with the British Watch and Clockmaking Company.  Meanwhile, the Swiss and American makers had been taking more and more of the British market with their cheaper products. 

The exhibition was mounted as a demonstration of the excellence of English craft/workmanship.  This, in part, was intended as a counter-measure to the perceived marginalisation of the makers by the retailers in the commercial relationship with the paying consumer. 

A panel of judges – which included the eminent Swedish-born chronometer maker, Victor Kullberg - awarded a number of prizes/commendations to exhibiting craftsmen.  The article noted that several of the winners were in the employ of Mr David Glasgow, and here we may perhaps smell a rat.  Born in 1824, in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, Glasgow worked for Jose Losada in Regent Street, London, before founding his own business in Granville Square and, subsequently, in Myddleton Square.  He specialised in watches for the Spanish market. 

The rodent odour – not too pungent – would stem from the fact that Glasgow was Vice President of the BHI and thus may possibly have had influence with the judging panel.  He certainly had an influence on the Trade in a wider context.  In his book, ‘Watch and Clock Making’, London, Cassell & Co, 1885, and various pronouncements, Glasgow consistently discounted the English trade’s vulnerability to foreign competition and the consequent need to change its business model.  Typical of the Trade’s Establishment at the time, he believed that the imported watches were of poor quality and their success would be short lived.  He was especially critical of American timepieces.  Too much so, in fact, as this attracted a law suit for libel which an embarrassed Glasgow had to settle out of court.  Here, below, is a letter printed in The Times in September 1877, in which Glasgow's attitude towards imported watches is readily demonstrated by his rather sweeping phrase, 'worthless foreign watches':

A WATCHMAKER’S GRIEVANCE

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES

  Sir,-The subject discussed in the meeting which you report under the above heading on Tuesday, the 11^th inst, affects the general public as much as the English watch manufacturers.  It is not a question of guarantee to the British public (as Sir John Bennett puts it in your issue of Wednesday) that a Swiss-made case should be 18-carat gold; it is conceded by all who know anything of the matter that the Swiss mark certifying the quality of the gold in a watch case is as much to be relied on as the mark of the London Goldsmiths’ Company; but the grievances of the watchmaker lies in the fact that the public, as a rule, seeing the English mark upon the case, believe the watch to be of English manufacture, and consequently of greater value.

 

  Therefore the marking of watch cases by the Goldsmiths’ Company, originally intended to protect the manufacturer as well as the public, is at present made use of to the detriment of both.  It is well known that many of our best watchmakers have suffered much loss and annoyance by having their names forged upon inferior watches (principally Swiss), which were sent into the market and sold as of their make.  I have lately had evidence of worthless foreign watches, with the name of an English maker on them, being sold in Central America at four times their value, the fraud being greatly facilitated by the well known English Hall-mark on the cases.

 

  While many watch manufacturers consider the marking of foreign-made cases by the Goldsmith’s Company to be a grievance (as it is undoubtedly a misapplication of the powers originally vested in the Company), they do not see any practicable remedy to be attained by Act of Parliament, even should Parliament adopt such a retrograde policy.

  The evil may be lessened if the public understand that the Hall mark now certifies to nothing but the quality of the metal in the case of the watch.

  I am, Sir, your obedient servant, D. GLASGOW, Vice-President, British Horological Institute.  20, Myddleton-square.

In an article written by R.F. and R.W Carrington for Antiquarian Horology, reference is made to an 1885 ‘head in the sand’ quote by Glasgow: ‘. . . it is greatly to be questioned whether the introduction of the factory system and wholesale adoption of manufacturing machinery would at all benefit the Trade in this country . . .’ 

Elsewhere, others were proposing various solutions to the productivity/costs issues, notably Sir John Bennett; he endorsed the notion of employing women on the grounds of lower pay rates; (see my article, Alexander Watkins, Innovative Chronometer Maker).  The Times article, innocently Victorian, strays into a twenty-first century minefield with the following text: 

(Women) . . . are not found to possess the combination of steadiness and delicacy of hand which is required for giving the last finish to objects of extreme minuteness. 

First Prize, £5 and a silver medal were awarded to George Abbott for the best chronometer escapement.  This was ‘old’ George Abbott, cited by one source as ‘the most famous of all the late Victorian chronometer detent makers’.  Given the threat to the English trade from across the Atlantic, it is perhaps ironic that George picked up his tools and relocated to New York.  There he worked for the chronometer maker, John Bliss & Co, winning a medal in the Paris exhibition of 1900. 

Pocketing £3 for a lever escapement of great merit was Richard Bridgman.  Bridgman had some elite employers – McCabe, Charles Frodsham and Nicole Nielsen.  For the latter, circa 1890, he devised a half plate movement which featured a ‘hanging barrel’.  This involved pivoting of the mainspring barrel on the bottom plate only – allowing a further reduction in the overall depth of the movement/watch, an increasingly fashionable feature of the time; equally, it facilitated the incorporation of a wider/more resilient mainspring.  Examples of Bridgman’s Nicole Nielsen movements can be seen on David Penney’s excellent Antique Watch Store site: http://www.antiquewatchstore.com/, item numbers: 11267, 16715 and 65624. 

Thinking further about the underlying issues challenging the Trade at the time, real significance can be attached to Bridgman’s work – his sort of innovation enabled English products to be made with more attractive appearance attributes and served as an embodiment of superior craft skills. 

William Borthwick Smith received an Honourable Mention.  He too is highly relevant to possible solutions to the English trade’s turmoil.  One such could have been for makers to diversify, utilising transferable precision expertise/skills in manufacturing other kinds of ‘technological’ products less vulnerable to foreign competition. 

In 1867 and 1869 Smith patented a number of watch and chronometer improvements.  He is recorded as a maker initially in Leamington Spa and, subsequently, (1870s), at Junction Street, Coventry.  While based in Coventry, Smith went into partnership with James Starley.  Trading as Smith, Starley & Co, they manufactured a line of acclaimed sewing machines, notable the Europa, Little Europa and Queen of Hearts models. 

The enterprise was initially successful, winning medals at international exhibitions in the early 1870s.  At the same time diversification into cycles and roller skates boosted profitability.  But, possibly, a lack of focus set in and in 1877 the company failed.  An excellent information resource on this business/industry can be found at: http://www.sewalot.com/starley_sewing_machines.htm 

The Times article records some good intentions and provides us with the names of some highly accomplished craftsmen.  The malaise undermining the English trade, however, continued, unabated.  One hundred years later a similar degradation –and eventual eclipse – would affect the British motorcycle and car manufacturing industries.

(March 2016): Special thanks are due to David H Grace who has kindly pointed out that the attribution of direct employment by John Bliss of George Abbott is probably mistaken.  The confusion stems from Bliss’s practice of obtaining movements from Victor Kullberg for finalisation/sale by the American firm.  Abbott is well-known for the work he carried out for Kullberg in London.  Tony Mercer’s index note for Abbott in Chronometer Makers of the World reads: Abbott, George.  61 Sandforth Ave, Eldon Rd, Wood Green, N, 1870-1933.  Famous detent maker.  He worked for V. Kullberg and was awarded a bronze medal at the Paris exhibition in 1900 as a collaborator.  He also made complete chronometer escapements.