Henri Sandoz

Henri Frédéric Sandoz

Henri Sandoz (1851-1913) was a watchmaker and industrialist best remembered as the founder of the Tavannes Watch Co, the factory that produced Cyma brand watches.

Early Life

Henri Frédéric Sandoz was born on March 5, 1851 in Le Locle. Following elementary school, Sandoz became apprenticed to a local watch caser, Samuel Aubert, who had been in the business from about 1859.

He was following in the footsteps of his father, who was a respected watch and clockmaker.

By 1869, at just 18 years of age, Sandoz respected as a maker of spiral gongs for repeater watches and fitting them to special cases. The young watchmaker soon served many of the best makers of repeating watches, likely including the local workshops of Henri Guye. It is likely that this work was done in association with Samuel Aubert, who was moved to La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1880 and was listed as specializing in this type of watch casing.

Sandoz is said to have begun finishing his own complicated watch movements by 1881 and also began inventing specialized machines to assist in the production of precision watch components. Under his direction one of the first automatic cutting machines was produced in Le Locle, a town later known for these tools following the spin-off of Dixi from Le Phare, Guye's company.

Move to Tavannes

In the 1880s, with the traditional agricultural production of wheat in the Swiss Jura suffering from Russian and American competition, the leading families of Tavannes sought to diversify the local economy. They jointly funded the construction of a watchmaking factory, seeking applications from industrialists to rent and operate the facility.

Henri Sandoz answered the call and, starting in 1890, quickly built the town into a leading producer of watches. He was backed by two (unrelated) Schwob families of La Chaux-de-Fonds, who financed his acquisition of the factory and an adjacent one a decade later.

Sandoz' business success was such that he was able to hire promising young architect René Chapallaz (1881-1976) to build a mansion in the town in 1905. The Sandoz villa still stands there as one of the greatest works of the architect, who also operated an office nearby. The interior of the mansion was decorated with murals painted by students from the Art School of La Chaux-de-Fonds in the Sapin style.

The Tavannes Watch Co was both supportive and paternalistic, directing most aspects of life in the down. Sandoz next hired Chapallaz to build a dozen ornate homes on the heights above the village. Nicknamed "the Caps", these were rented to factory executives at the whim of Sandoz himself. Around 1908, René Chapallaz married Rosy Sandoz, one of Henri's daughters, but her mental health issues forced the couple to move to La Chaux-de-Fonds.

Sandoz' health suffered in 1913 and he ultimately died on Tuesday, March 18, at 5 AM. He was succeeded by his son, Henry Sandoz-Mamie, who was at that time mayor of Tavannes. The younger Henry Sandoz collaborated with Eugène Romy (commercial director) and Nelly Sandoz, who directed the company's factory in Undervelier.

Following Henri Sandoz' death his children continued to support the village of Tavannes. One of his daughters, Nelly, financed the construction of the Church of Christ the King in 1930. Over time, the Schwob family took greater control of the Tavannes Watch Co and the later Cyma brand.