Arthur Walsh

I first became aware of Arthur Walsh (‘APW’) when writing about the celebrated watchmaker, Thomas F Cooper – APW was an apprentice of Cooper.  It quickly became apparent that he was worthy of study in his own right, his reputation eventually approaching that of the T F Cooper ‘brand.’  APW himself became a ‘brand,’ although his movements often featured in timepieces outwardly signed by other manufacturers/retailers.  As a result, his name did not come to be as well-known to the general public as ‘Cooper,’ but his expertise – particularly with springing – within the watch and chronometer-making trade, was widely acclaimed.

 

APW was born on 24 April 1816, the last of the eight children of Frederick and Harriet Walsh.  Around 1830-33 he was apprenticed to Cooper.¹  Such was Cooper’s standing and commercial success, especially with the export of watches to the Americas, that he was able to demand a substantial premium from APW’s parents.²  The lad himself, no doubt, had to demonstrate above average potential to understand and become proficient with the technology involved.  That he was successful in realising this potential is evidenced by APW’s development of a distinctive form of remontoir in 1837, at the age of just 21.  The remontoir is a sub-mechanism which governs the application of power to the escapement.  It acts as a form of buffer between the main source of power – the mainspring – and the escapement, helping even out the going rate and thus improving consistency.  This was especially necessary in applications where really accurate time keeping was required, such as in Marine Chronometers, and, indeed, John Harrison established the spring remontoir in the 1730s when developing his series of chronometers in his quest for the Longitude prize.  APW’s achievement, though not as lauded as Harrison’s, earnt him recognition in the form of a Silver Isis Award from The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce.³

Fig.1. Isis Medal.  Courtesy of Fotolibra

This was not to be the last of APW’s innovative contributions to the craft of watchmaking.  Having been so involved with an aspect of springing with the remontoir, he developed further understanding and expertise with other functionalities founded on the behaviour of a sprung component.  The hairsprings then generally available to watchmakers were considerably variable in their quality and performance.  As a result, a watchmaker was obliged to use the services of a craftsman specifically skilled in adjusting each individual escapement’s springing to ensure the movement’s good timekeeping.  Although this situation provided to APW himself a steady supply of work as such a ‘springer,’ he nevertheless took a bigger-picture view and sought to establish himself as a supplier of springs strictly conforming to physical characteristics which would guarantee consistent performance.  To this end he devised a factory process which assured reliable standards of hardening and tempering.  According to Gerrit Nijssen, APW established a business to supply the watchmaking trade with these springs at 46 Wilmington Square, in 1858.⁴ 

With the advent, mid-century, of an increasing ‘fashion’ for Pocket Chronometers, a need for further improvement in timekeeping accuracy was recognised, and, once more, attention was focused on the hairspring.  Since the later eighteenth century the helical form had been in use in Marine Chronometers.  This innovation, by John Arnold, was feasible given the size and corresponding space accommodation of these instruments.  It was, however, rather bulky for easy incorporation into a pocket-size movement.  For such timepieces, isochronous properties were achieved by a Breguet-invented spring form which, while being essentially flat, featured an overcoil/inward twist.  At the 1862 International Exhibition a new form, combining the helical and the Breguet solutions was shown by John McLennan of Park Place, Islington.  Known as the ‘duo-in-uno’ hairspring, it was hailed as a significant improvement.  Its authorship was however disputed.  That APW was already aware of the concept was suggested by his ability to introduce several examples into his own presentation at the Exhibition within a day or so.  And he contended that the ‘duo-in-uno’ had in fact been invented by Charles Mairet, a Swiss-born Watch Examiner of Crouch Hill.  A duo-in-uno spring – from APW’s movement #281 – is shown below:

Fig.2. Courtesy of Tom McIntyre

During this period APW was active both as a component supplier/springer, and as a chronometer-maker in his own right.⁵  Based on ebauches from Prescot, his movements were marketed in his own name and that of Parkinson & Frodsham and Brillman & Co in England, and in the U.S. as for/by Samuel Hammond, and John Bliss.  APW also did work for the acclaimed English chronometer maker, Edward Daniel Johnson.  Beyond his directly commercial concerns, APW was a well-respected member of the Council of the British Horological Society. 

Most records show APW’s address as being No.5 George Street, a thoroughfare that runs from Edgware Road, a little north of Marble Arch, across to Thayer Street in the heart of Marylebone.  In the citation for his Isis medal, and in the 1851 Census return, the number was given as 6, so there may have been a renumbering.  Today No.6 is extant and it has a second front door, designated 6A.  No.5 itself is long gone - that side of the road in the vicinity having been redeveloped.  As an adult, APW was not consistently No.5’s Head of Household, and, in 1871 for instance, he was recorded as simply a Boarder, the house being kept by his niece, Emily. 

As mentioned above, APW also had premises at Wilmington Square, just to the east of Farringdon Road, Clerkenwell, and close to E. D. Johnson’s premises.  He was also at 14 Regent Square, Grays Inn, in the 1850s – T F Cooper owned property here and may well have been APW’s landlord. 

Robert Gardner, in his appreciation of APW in the Horological Journal – see footnote 1 – said that APW had told him that he had sprung over 1000 chronometer movements.  Nijssen thought that about 500 of these were for other makers/retailers and the remainder under his own signature.  Movement number ranges and the allocation of individual numbers are relatively orderly and consistent – unlike many other makers!  In the main, there would appear to be two non-consecutive ranges, one using three digits, the lowest I have seen documented being, #182, and the other employing four digits, between ‘#1500’ and ‘#2900.’   Extant examples I have recently noted are shown in the table below, (noting that #4299 would be a number assigned by Parkinson & Bouts, and for a watch sold after APW’s death):

By the 1850s APW had established a form and quality standard for Pocket Chronometers especially marketable in New York.  Samuel Hammond, a Manhattan retailer, proved to be an excellent agent for APW, presenting his products – and those also of Cooper and Nicole Nielsen - to customers keen on acquiring a superior quality, European watch.  Usually in an 18k gold case, the spring detent chronometer movement would run with a bi-metallic balance and the dial would feature an Up-Down sub-dial to show the state of wind. 

#281, C-1860, is an example of a Hammond-branded chronometer:

Fig.3. Courtesy of Tom McIntyre, NAWCC

Whilst typical of later production is #2017, C-1875:

Fig.4. Courtesy of Sotheby's

But though APW was adept at creating timepieces of excellent technical quality, he did not establish a business dynasty, because he died – in June 1893 - having never married, let alone as a father.  The value of his estate amounted to £823 18s. 11d.

 
The Horological Journal carried an obituary in its July 1893 issue.⁶  It contained some high praise for APW, including:
 

(He), though not much known to the public, had a reputation amongst horologists second to none, and deservedly so.  In high-class springing and adjusting his work was as nearly perfect as it is possible for human productions to be.  As a manufacturer he was unexcelled.

 
In his appreciation piece, published in September issue, Robert Gardener claimed in regard to APW’s development of the Pocket Chronometer:
 

. . . (he) completely transformed the movement, making it a half-plate, and sinking the fourth wheel in the bar.

 
Thus it would seem that APW not only achieved very high standards of production quality, but also was responsible for a significant development of the model on which other makers executed their Pocket Chronometers.  This, together with his specialist springing expertise and success in exporting marks him out as an important figure in chronometer-making in the later nineteenth century.

________________________________________________________________________________

Footnotes:
1 As recorded in Robert Gardner’s letter published in the Horological Journal, 36, 01-02 Sept Oct 1893 pp. 4 -6

2 At an even earlier date Cooper was able to include the indication ‘a handsome premium required,’ for example in his advertisement in The Times, 20 August 1819

3 Transactions of the Society of Arts, Vol. 52, (January 1839), pp 75-78; available as a Google eBook

4 Arthur Paul Walsh and Samuel Hammond, by Gerrit Nijssen, NAWCC Bulletin, Volume 38/6, Number 305, December 1996, p. 749

5 He was also briefly in partnership with Robert Oliphant, at 63 Firth Street, Soho in a business supplying tools and materials to the watchmaking trade (dissolved in 1855)

6  Horological Journal, July 1893, p. 48

Clever but Cranky

Just published in Clocks Magazine is my article on William Schoof.

Researching Schoof led me to read about Schleswig-Holstein, for the first time since my days at grammar school - rather a long time ago nowadays!  Schoof was born in Flensburg located in that state, but came to London in 1856.  He then established himself as a watchmaker and built a considerable reputation over a forty year career.  He sought to innovate with a 10 tooth chronometer lever escapement and in promoting his ideas became thought of as somewhat cantankerous by his trade peers.  In the obituary published by The Horological Journal, Schoof was characterised thus:

He was a remarkably clever man but he had imbibed some peculiar views as to the principles underlying the construction of mechanism(s) which were not generally accepted, and though genial and good-hearted, would press his theories somewhat offensively, and in so doing often gave offence.  In fact those who knew him and respected him found it the best plan not to argue with him at all on his favourite subject.

The article also covers Schoof's two brushes with the law - first his inadvertent involvement in a terrorist plot in which a large stash of weapons was discovered on his premises.  Later, Schoof was far from blameless, being accused of false imprisonment.

The May 2022 issue of Clocks Magazine is available here.

Reuben Squire

The town of Bideford lies on the River Torridge near the North Devon coast, between the bigger town of Barnstaple to the north and Hartland Point to the south.  Six miles south of Bideford is the small village of Buckland Brewer and it was here in the 1840s that Robert Squire changed his occupation from that of a Glazier (as was his father, John,) to a Watch and Clock Maker.  Robert and his wife, Harriett, had seven children, the second of whom, Reuben, was born in 1847.  Both Reuben and his elder brother, Leigh, followed Robert into the watchmaking trade. 

Given his rural location and lack of horological heritage and experience, it is likely that Robert’s work was unremarkable and largely amounted to simple finishing of ‘raw’ ébauche movements sourced from the wholesale trade manufacturing communities of Prescot and Coventry.  Robert and Leigh traded initially as ‘Squire & Son’ from 12, High Street, Bideford from the 1860s.  Their partnership was dissolved in 1882, but Leigh carried on at the same premises until circa 1902.  This example of their work, based on a Rotherhams ébauche and dated 1879, is from the Dennis Bacon-Max Cutmore Collection:

Fig.1. Squire & Son movement #138408.  Courtesy of Leigh Extence. www.extence.co.uk

Probably because the business was not of sufficient scale to gainfully employ father and both sons, Reuben did not remain at home and sought training and experience elsewhere.  The 1871 Census found him in Taunton, a considerably larger town located the other side of Exmoor; at 29 Fore Street, Reuben was employed as assistant to Charles Haddon, Silversmith and Master Watchmaker. 

But however much bigger Taunton was than Bideford, Reuben had ambition which drew him towards London and the possibilities there of building a substantial watchmaking business.  So December 1880 saw him registering the trademark of his newly-found enterprise, The London Watch Company, which he styled, ‘Watch Manufacturer English & Foreign Watches & Clocks.’  Based at 35 Myddleton Square, products were marked thus:

Fig.2. LWC Trademark. Courtesy of Thomas Hodkin/Google Books

The Census of the following year noted that Reuben was, ‘employing 1 man and 1 boy constantly.’  For the next fourteen years Reuben’s horological activities were at their height.  Early in the period he repeatedly sought election to the Council of the British Horological Institute, but without success. 

1884 proved to be an especially significant year for Reuben.  In September of that year he applied for two British Patents:

Fig.3. Patent Applications, listed in The Horological Journal, August 1885

The November 1884 issue of The Horological Journal featured a letter from Reuben extolling the virtues of his innovations in obviating the complications for the watchmaker in the replacement of a mainspring.  He wrote in conclusion with considerable confidence: 

The cost of production is perfectly nil in the hands of a movement maker, and probably would not alter the price of a watch, so it is for the watchmakers themselves to say how soon they will have it in their future purchases, and how long they will suffer the inconvenience of existing barrels. 

So he must have found it dispiriting to see in the following month’s issue two critical letters:

Fig.4. Letters in The Horological Journal, December 1884

Undeterred, and while the patents application process took its course, Reuben prepared exhibits for the International Inventions Exhibition, held in South Kensington, May to October, 1885.  His presentation was reported in the June 1885 issue of The Horological Journal thus: 

R Squire has a little case with his specialities, including a watertight watch immersed in a glass globe full of water, and movements showing his removable barrel, and adjustable, or, as he terms it, isochronal balance spring stud, which may be shifted in any direction to accommodate the outer end of the balance spring, so that the latter is not forced or strained. 

Squire’s advertisement referring to the Exhibition and his receipt of its medal, provided a head-on challenge to his competitor, Bensons, and its ‘Ludgate’ model, about which the Journal’s Exhibition report said: 

J W Benson makes a speciality of his Ludgate watch, with dust-tight band enclosing the movement. 

This is the Squire’s advertisement:

Fig. 5. Squire Advertisement, 1885

Despite the advertisement’s copy claiming Squire’s competitiveness with the Benson product, it is instructive to note that the Ludgate firm secured the Exhibition’s gold medal, ‘for improvements in machine made watches,’ whereas Squire’s was the lesser, bronze, award, and was noted with the somewhat disparaging citation, ‘for improvements in cheap watches.’ 

In February 1885 Squire’s response to the Heden and ‘Jobber’ criticisms appeared in The Horological Journal:

Fig.6. The Horological Journal, February 1885

But it was not long before Reuben was once again under attack in print, this time from Joseph Player of Coventry: 

Removable Barrel – With reference to Mr Squire’s observations respecting the removable barrel . . . I wish to say that the model now at the International Exhibition was executed months before his letter appeared in February last; and there is little doubt, I think, but the same arrangement must have suggested itself before now to many watchmakers.  With regard to his criticisms upon my ratchet work, I think a glance at the model in question will satisfy any one of its soundness and practicality.

Meanwhile, the patent applications took their course, being sealed eventually in August 1885.  Nevertheless, at this point Squire seems to have become decidedly tetchy, going into print to (possibly prematurely) pour scorn on fellow maker, Richard Thorneloe.  I have researched and written about Thorneloe previously and did not find anything of substance relating to a patent application dispute: he is mainly known for his difficulties with his ‘ownership’ of the notorious John Forrest brand. 

Fig.7. The Horological Journal, November 1885

For the next few years Reuben persisted with his efforts to expand his business, trading with The London Watch Company name.  But, despite what such a name implied, his enterprise could not achieve the growth, increased scale and consequent costs-containment of mass production which would have allowed his products to be price-competitive with those of the bigger British firms, let alone with the ubiquitous timepieces of Swiss and American origin.  By September 1895, the business was no longer viable, and an extraordinary meeting resolved that it should be wound-up, leading to the publication of this notice:

Fig.8. The Gazette, 25 October 1895

Reuben himself was not in straightened circumstances and enjoyed a lengthy period of retirement, moving back to Devon.  Remaining of active mind, he found the time to pursue his interest in innovation, one result of which was the securing in 1909 of a patent for shoe heel savers!  He lived in his home village of Buckland Brewer until around 1914, when he relocated to Westcroft Terrace in Bideford, where he died in March 1934. He left £2,456 16s. – in the region of £800,000 in present-day wealth terms.

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 Watch Derby

Time and again in the coverage of horology in Victorian newspapers, the demise of the English trade stemming from the Swiss ‘invasions’ was a matter of lamentation.  For example, in The Times, 16 December 1886, a meeting at the Board of Trade the previous day was reported as an initiative to stop imported timepieces being passed off as being ‘English’.  A deputation of English makers, led by Captain Penton, MP for Finsbury and Vice President of The London Watchmakers Association, asked for measures ‘to prevent the sale in England of foreign made watches bearing the English hall-mark and to prohibit the putting of foreign movements into English hall-marked cases’: 

SIR ALBERT ROLLIT, M.P., put the case of the deputation before his lordship.  He said there was great depression in the English watch trade, and the causes were not far to seek.  The result of a conference, presided over by Captain Penton, at Clerkenwell was that the English watchmaker was confident of his own work, and he did not in the slightest degree fear competition.  This was no question of free trade, fair trade, or protection, but simply one of protection against injustice and fraud.  The Committee of the House of Commons in 1879 on Hall-marking had already found the facts upon which the deputation wished the Government to legislate.  That report stated:- “The chief complaint against the operation of the existing law comes from the manufacturers of watches and watch cases.  They have established by evidence that within the last few years a practice has sprung up, and is rapidly increasing, under which foreign-made watch cases are sent to this country to be marked with the British hall-mark, and afterwards fitted with foreign movements, and are then not infrequently sold and dealt in as British-made watches.”  To show the increase of the deceit practised upon the British public, when that report was issued it was estimated at only 10 per cent., and now it was 29 per cent.; and no less than 37,000 watches were hall-marked last year which were fitted with foreign works, and which ultimately ran the risk, according to the report of the Select Committee of 1879, of being sold and dealt with fraudulently as English-made goods.  They asked, not that any one should be prevented from buying foreign watches with all their faults, but that they should be protected against having them passed off as English-made goods.  The very principle upon which the Fraudulent Trade Marks Bill was established was to keep up the trade reputation of the country and to protect English workmen from injustice.

The oft-repeated received wisdom which held that Swiss and American quality was inferior to that achieved by the home producers emerged in this report in the passage where the Deputation had asked, ‘not that anyone should be prevented from buying foreign watches with all their faults but that they should be protected against having them passed off as English-made goods. 

This reliance on the notion that the English watch was technically superior was misplaced, and, as time went by, the reputation for Swiss quality grew as did the sales volumes.  This is readily illustrated by the next article, from The Times, 7 June 1881.  Here it was seen that on objective measurement the products of Switzerland were marginally superior to those of England, albeit the Americans had some ground to make up.  The evaluations are described as a sort of ‘Watch Derby’ with the best watch invariably coming in first, ‘which is not always the case with the best horse’: 

ENGLISH AND SWISS WATCHES. – Our Geneva Correspondent write:- “The comments made on my letter on the Swiss watch trade (which you printed on April 13^th, as well in your columns as elsewhere, have attracted some attention in Switzerland and been the means of eliciting further details concerning the principles on which the horological prizes in the Melbourne Exhibition were awarded.  In reference to a remark of one of your correspondents, that the judgements of exhibition juries are by no means infallible, it is pointed out that, though there may well be differences of opinion as to the relative excellence of finish and outside appearance of several watches, good going is a matter of fact; and that watches sent for competition to Melbourne were tested in the observatory and their respective time-keeping qualities ascertained beyond a possibility of doubt.  The highest number of points, as I have already mentioned (500 out of a possible 500) was obtained by a Swiss watch; next comes an English watch by Kilpatrick, of London (495 points).  To them succeed the following:- A Swiss watch, 490 points; English, (Bukney), 485; Swiss 480; a German watch, 470; Swiss, 465; English (Bukney), 460; Swiss, 455; English, 450; Swiss, 445; English, 440; German, 435; American (Waltham), 430; English, 425; American (Waltham), 420; English, 415; German, 410; English, 405; English, 400.  No Swiss watch entered for competition gained less than 445 marks, no English watch fewer than 400.  The greatest number obtained by an American watch was 430, and four American watches were sent to the observatory which, because they gained fewer than 400 marks, were not classed.  It will thus be seen that, albeit Swiss watches showed a decided superiority, their English competitors ran them very close, while American watches were almost out of the running.  If the system of official testing which obtains in Geneva were established in England it could hardly fail to have a beneficial effect on British watch-making.  Geneva horologists can send their watches to the observatory here to be thoroughly tested, and the results of the annual competition are awaited with eager interest.  It is a sort of watch Derby, with the difference that the best watch invariably comes in first, which is not always the case with the best horse.  A few days ago M. Plantamour, the eminent astronomer, head of the observatory here, in a lecture to the industrial class of the Society of Arts, gave some details concerning the watch competition of 1880 which possess a special interest, inasmuch as he has introduced several new tests that took effect for the first time last year.  The principal modification is that, whereas the watches sent in for competition used only to be placed in the refrigerator and stove 24 hours respectively, and errors of compensation are compared as well with the extremes of temperature in these two receptacles (about 5 deg. To 30 deg. Centigrade) as with the temperature of the room (from 15 deg. To 17 deg.)  The successful watches, which it is hardly necessary to say are chronometer watches, are divided into two classes – ‘satisfactory’ and ‘very satisfactory’.  No watch can rank as ‘very satisfactory’ unless it reaches this standard; its diurnal variation for 40 days must be no more than three-quarters of a second; its maximum variation between one position and another must not exceed 2½ seconds nor more than one-fifth of a second, on the average, for each degree of temperature.  Of the 333 watches sent in for competition 117 answered to these conditions.  It is considered a very remarkable result that 78 watches exceeded the minimum of excellence laid down by the observatory.  Their mean performances being for the first test (diurnal variation), 0.474; for the second (position test), 1.538; for the third (variation of temperature), 0.127 of a second.  It would seem hardly possible that horological art can be brought to greater perfection than these figures denote.  But M. Plantamour, not content with claiming a number of watches as ‘very satisfactory’, even on the very stringent conditions he has laid down, grades them by a system of points of which zero corresponds with the minimum of excellence insisted upon for the award if ‘very satisfactory,’ while 300 represents absolute perfection, a point, it is scarcely necessary to say, unattainable even by Swiss watchmakers.  Nevertheless, some of them fall not very far short even of this lofty standard – one won 192, another 191, and a third 189 points.  Fifteen watches were awarded more than 150, and 28 more than 140 points, and these may, perhaps, be regarded as the finest specimens of horological skill which either Switzerland or any other country has yet produced.  While on the subject of time I would mention, for the benefit of travellers in Switzerland that Geneva has three times.  Having its own observatory it insists on having its own standard of time, and, while all the rest of Switzerland follows ‘the hour of Berne,’ the clocks in this canton are set by local time.  Hence, as the Swiss and French railways, which have their termini here, work by Berne and Paris time respectively, three different times are in vogue in Geneva, a condition of things rather bewildering for the uninformed traveller and not without occasional inconvenience for residents."