Watchmaking in Clerkenwell

[Stovepipe]

Hi Rootschatters,

I have a relative aged 16 in the 1861 census and described as a watch case maker. But 10 years later he is a carpenter.

He may, of course, have changed his trade for personal reasons, but I wonder if anyone knows about the watchmaking industry in Clerkenwell in general - did it suffer a decline in the 1860s?

Cheers,
Stovepipe

[Jeuel]

I only know that it was piecemeal, with some people starting off the mechanisms and others finishing (assembling) it.  Maybe a possibility is that making watch cases was rather fiddly and his eyesight deteriorated a bit or he may have had some other cause to take up another occupation.  I would have thought he'd need an apprenticeship for both jobs. 

This article http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22169 says there was - still is - competition from Swiss watchmakers, but that has an earlier date than the 1860s.  However it does mention that from the 1850s there was a faster rate of manufacture in the USA.  It also gives information about the different parts of watchmaking.

[chasbaz]

Get in touch with the Guildhall Library (City of London).
They have the collection of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers and a great deal of information on apprenticeships etc.
They will certainly be able to help with the rise and fall of the industry in Clerkenwell.
It is true that about the time you mention, American watches were coming into the country in huge quantities.
They had mastered the production line approach, which they had applied to clocks early in the 19C.
Many of the American watches were of high quality.

[Stovepipe]

Many thanks, chasbaz & Jeuel.

Good information and sound advice about the Guildhall library.

Cheers,
Stovepipe

[[Ray]]

Hi

I initially, mistakenly, read "watch" as "clock".
If it was "clock" then he could still have been in the same industry?

Even "I make cases for a watch and clock maker" shortened by the enumerator.

Another alternative could be that  he found working with metals not to his liking (he was only 16) but that he was "good with wood".

[chasbaz]

Watches and clocks are different of course but the London trade for both was still centred on Clerkenwell.
The difference is in the cases.  Pocket watch cases require great skill in metalwork as well as gold and silversmithing.
Many small clocks also had metal cases.  If the exacting work of metal cases was too much of a strain, building wooden cases for bracket and longcase clocks would be more congenial.  I've also been a woodworker at heart, so though I also work on clock mechanisms I would much rather be restoring or rebuilding the wooden cases.  Maybe your relative felt the same way!