Lévy

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The Lévy family famously founded Léon Lévy Fréres (predecessor to Pierce in Bienne and Moutier) but were also closely connected through marriage to many other watchmaking factories.

The Lévy family came from Hegenheim, and it is there that Gaspard Lévy (1814-1860) married Henriette Barbe-Schmoll (1820-1895) in 1849. Henriette was the daughter of a laborer, Salomon Schmoll, and it is likely that Gaspard was a simple peddler or craftsman. The family included eight children, three girls and five boys, one of whom died as an infant. Henri was the oldest son, born in 1851, followed by Moïse in 1853, Léon in 1856, and Théodore in 1859. Gaspard died in 1860, just as anti-semitism was rising again in the region. The Lévy sons saw Switzerland as an opportunity to establish a new life away from the pogroms. Moïse emigrated to Starrkirch in Solothurn in 1874 to escape conscription, followed by Léon and Théodore, who settled in Aegerten, close to Basel.

It is unknown how Léon Lévy became involved in watchmaking, but the city of Bienne/Biel was actively seeking to expand this industry in the 1880s and set in place tax incentives to bring watchmakers to town. It is likely that Lévy entered an apprenticeship to a watchmaker before establishing his own workshop, since this is how most entered the trade at the time.

Léon Lévy and his brother founded a watch company in Bienne Switzerland in 1883 under the name Léon Lévy et Frère. The company was located at Rue Neuve 22. Another firm known Lévy Frères already existed in the city at Place de Moulin 7 and had been in operation since at least 1867. By 1890 Léon Lévy's firm was known as Léon Lévy et Frères and had moved to Quartier-Neuf 29. It moved to Rue Centrale 6 by 1893, just as the continuing firm of Lévy Frères moved a short distance down that same street.

Léon and his brothers sent for their mother to join them in Bienne in 1884, and she remained there with them until her death in 1895. By 1886, the Lévy workshop was said to employ 700 workers, manufacturing a wide range of watches. Léon married Léonie Grumbach that same year, an Alsatian from Colmar. They soon had two children, Margot (1887) and Pierre (1894).

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