Further Thoughts: Rentzsch and Berrollas

My article entitled, The Novel Technology of Sigismund Rentzsch, was published in the September 2017 issue of Clocks Magazine.  Rentzsch’s contemporary, Joseph Anthony Berrollas, was the subject of my article published in Volume 38, Number 2, (June 2017), of Antiquarian Horology, journal of the Antiquarian Horological Society.  I referred to these two distinctive watchmakers in the post here of 8 June 2017.

Both have been featured in enquiries I’ve subsequently received, confirming the especially interesting nature of their lives and work.

Regarding JAB, a horology enthusiast kindly sent me details of Berrollas timepieces he has owned, most particularly a drum alarm, #1500:

Having also owned a Berrollas carriage clock, my correspondent was able to reflect on the maker’s apparently peripatetic lifestyle between England and the Continent.  He comments: ‘His English work has French characteristics, and the French clocks have English details. On his English clocks I have only seen going barrels, not fusees. On the French clock escapements there are English details, like the recessed index, jewelling & hairspring stud, as on my carriage clock, (on the main spring of which is the date 1842).

He adds: ‘About 30 years ago I looked at a similar clock to #1500, in The Museum of the History of Science in Oxford.  The Museum’s example is signed, James McCabe, and the curator had no wish to be told that Berrollas had made it!’

I would like to think that my article on Rentzsch would have been a further contribution towards his profile, though this should have already been high enough to support the notion that examples of his work merit above-average valuation as they come to the market from time to time; certainly I would expect to Rentzsch to be considered ‘collectable.’  So I’m somewhat surprised that it has been possible to acquire a good-looking example in 2020 for less than £600.

Dating from 1807, the open face pocket watch featured in a Bonham’s sale last month:

Reverting to 2017, shortly before my Clocks Magazine article was published, this Rentzsch alarm came up for sale at Auktionen Dr. Crott, Frankfurt Airport:

Circa 1830, it was described in the catalogue:

An exquisite “Pendule de Bureau” with “Petite Sonnerie” and alarm.  Case: brass; Dial: silvered;  Movm.: circular brass full plate movement, heavy gold screw chronometer balance, 2 x chain/fusee, 3 hammers/1 bell.

A good deal of quality and plenty of horological interest/complication I’d suggest in return for the modest €1,500 winning bid.

In Print

In response to an e-mail enquiry - thanks for your interest in my work Johann - here's a list of my recent print-published horology articles:

Title	Subject	Publication	Issue Date
Grant of Fleet Street	John Grant and his son	Clocks Magazine	February 2016
Alexander Watkins 1	Watkins and his family	Clocks Magazine	April 2016
Alexander Watkins 2	Watkins and his family	Clocks Magazine	May 2016
Man or Brand?	Ralph and David Gout	Antiquarian Horology	June 2016
John Poole	John Poole	Clocks Magazine	August 2016
Ahead of its Time	George Sanderson	Clocks Magazine	March 2017
Impoverished Innovator	Joseph Berrollas	Antiquarian Horology	June 2017
The Circumvoluting Brand	Sigismund Rentzsch	Clocks Magazine	September 2017
Margetts	George Margetts	Clocks Magazine	December 2017

Rentzsch and Berrollas

Since my last post here, I have finalised an article on Rentzsch.  This includes some interesting new information which has come to light as a result of contact from Michel Reymond as he researched an article on the Australian watchmaker, John Forrester.  Forrester emigrated from England in 1837 and set-up in business in Sydney the following year.  In an advertisement he includes the boast, “Twelve years Foreman to Sigismund Rentzsch, Watch Maker to the Queen and Royal Family, St. James Square, London.”  My thanks to Michel and I look forward to seeing his piece on Forrester.  My article, entitled, The Novel Technology of Sigismund Rentzsch, features in the September 2017 issue of Clocks Magazine.

Volume 38, Number 2, (June 2017), of Antiquarian Horology, journal of the Antiquarian Horological Society, includes my new article on Joseph Anthony Berrollas.  Possibly born in the same year as Rentzsch and also an immigrant to nineteenth century England, Berrollas was highly innovative though not very successful in commercial terms.

Both Rentzsch and Berrollas worked on distinctive versions of keyless winding and they are associated with some of the most significant watchmaking names of the early nineteenth century: Rentzsch employed a young Peter Ingold and Berrollas worked with the London retailer, Viner, and the leading Liverpool makers, Robert Roskell and Peter Litherland.

Here are examples of Continental craftsmen who were instrumental in providing a dynamic within English watchmaking whilst the Trade’s very future was so intensely threatened by the cheap products being imported from Switzerland and France.

Berrollas Alarm Movement, courtesy of Worthpoint

Another Innovator

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: