Chronology of Watchmaking

• 1766 - Antide Janvier, born in St-Claude, composes at the age of fourteen a celestial sphere received with praise by the Academy of Sciences of Besançon.
• 1768 - F. Berthoud submits his new theory of balance spring isochronism.
• 1770 - J.-Ant. Lépine presented Louis XV with a so-called astronomical repeater, with equation and perpetual calendar.
• 1773 - Experiments by F. Berthoud on the effect of temperature variations.
• 1775 (approximately) - Lépine transforms the mechanism of watches by removing the fusee, and replacing the upper plate with bridges. He adapted the comma escapement of his invention to it.
• 1775 - John Arnold invents the cylindrical hairspring.
• 1778 - Jean-Baptiste Prudhomme writes Considerations on gears, which he presents to the Société des arts de Genève at the same time as his proportion compass.
• 1778 - Robert Robin, a French watchmaker, presents a memoir in which he discusses the properties of the winding mechanism, a perpetual calendar, etc. Inventor of a free escapement & trigger with two rests without spring.
• 1780 - Ab.-L. Perrelet, from Le Locle, invented the so-called perpetual shaking watch, which is also attributed to a watchmaker from Vienna (Austria).
• 1182 - John Arnold, English watchmaker, creator of the first types of current marine chronometers, takes out a patent for his free & detent escapement and his compensating balance wheel.
• 1784 - L.-Sébastien Lenormand invents a free vibration escapement.
• 1784 - The famous automaton manufacturer Jacquet Droz settles in Geneva.
• 1786 - Moise Pouzait, from Geneva, builds a type of free & anchor escapement. He is the author of the first deadbeat seconds watches.
• 1790 - Thomas Earnshaw, English watchmaker, perfects Arnold's balance wheel and escapement.
• 1790 - First adjustment competition for pocket watches, organized by the Société des arts de Genève.
• 1794 - Peter Litherland, in Liverpool, patents his rake anchor escapement for watches.
• 1794 - Thomas Mudge, author of a free escapement with equal arc or constant-force remontoire, and the free lever escapement.
• 1795 - Urbain Jurgensen, a Danish watchmaker, adopts a gold alloy for the hairsprings.
• 1798 - L. Perron, from Besançon, invents a free escapement with inclined planes for watches.
• 1800 (approximately) - Abram-Louis Breguet, of Neuchâtel origin, perfected the watches of the Lépine system; he creates the ruby tile cylinder escapement, the compensating racket and the parachute. He was the introducer of a number of innovations, including the bent hairspring, the snap-on watch key, the so-called torer mechanism. billon, also attributed to Perrelet, etc.
• 1802 - Caux, from Scionzier (Haute-Savoie), imagines using fluted steel for the manufacture of gables.
• 1804 - Publication of the Essay on repeating watches, by François Crespe, Geneva watchmaker.
• 1804 - Hardy, an English watchmaker, imagines a compensating balance wheel system at all temperatures, which served as the basis for the tests carried out in the same direction by Dent, Frodsham, Kullberg, etc.
• 1805 - Antoine Tavan, a Geneva watchmaker, produces a collection of twelve varied escapements, including several of his invention.
• 1805 - Urbain Jurgensen publishes the General principles of the exact measurement of time.
• 1812 - Louis Berthoud publishes Talks on watchmaking.
• 1821 - Rieussec, inventor of the pointer chronograph. Horse racing test.
• 1823 - The Classe d'industrie of the Société des arts de Genève founds a watchmaking school, the first creation of its kind.
• 1825 - Georges-Auguste Leschot, from Geneva, introduces pulling into the construction of the lever escapement.
• 1827 - J. Wagner, from Paris, presents a clock whose pendulum beating the seconds is made of a pine stem.
• 1828 - Jacques-Frédéric Houriet, from Le Locle, presents a non-magnetic chronometer at the exhibition organized by the Classe d'industrie of the Société des arts de Genève.
• 1829 - Henri Robert, from Paris, imagines a compensator for a pendulum, made of platinum and zinc, and a pendulum with a fir wood rod.
• 1830 - Movable time is substituted for true time in the indication of clocks in Paris.
• 1831 - Winnerl, from Paris, builds the first chronographs with two second hands.
• 1833 - E.-J. Dent, of London, publishes the results of his experiments on the inadequacy of the ordinary compensating balance at extreme temperatures.
• 1834 - A.-H. Benott, from Versailles, exhibits a constant-force escapement and a balance, gold and platinum, intended to combat the influence of electricity.
• 1835 - Reymond-Bertaud, a watchmaker in Paris, invents a winding mechanism and sets the time on the pendant.
• 1836 - Virgile Borel, from Couvet, invents the rounding machine.
• 1837 - Antoine Léchaud develops and perfects the manufacture of lever escapements for precision watches in Geneva.
• 1839 - L. Moinet publishes in Paris his Elementary, Theorical and Practical Treatise on Watchmaking for Civil and Astronomical Use.
• 1840 - Georges-Auguste Leschot, from Geneva, invents and builds a complete series of machine tools intended for the manufacture of all parts of the watch.
• 1840 - Charles Wheatstone, born in Gloucester, imagines the transmission of time by electro-chronometric counters.
• 1840 - Bain, English engineer, builds a clock whose operation is sustained by electromagnetic force.
• 1840 - Rob. Molyneux, an English watchmaker, invented, at the same time as his competitor E.-J. Eiffe, a balance wheel with compensation auxiliary for extreme temperatures. John Poole and Sir Georges Airy have also proposed compensation auxiliaries.
• 1840 - Sir G. Airy, director of the Greenwich observatory, publishes an account of his experiments concerning the influence of terrestrial magnetism on the rate of chronometers.
• 1840 - Louis Audemars, in Le Brassus, creates a pendant crown. Other systems, due to Breguet and Reymond-Bertaud, in Paris, to Ad. Philippe, in Paris, to Ad. Nicole, a Swiss watchmaker established in London, & Ant. Lecoultre, in Le Sentier (Switzerland), and Sylvain Mairet, in Le Locle, are before or after this date.
• 1842 - The physicist Aug. de la Rive, from Geneva, invents the galvanic gilding process.
• 1842 - Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué, from Strasbourg, restores the clock of the cathedral of this city.
• 1848 - Ant. Redier, born in Perpignan, inventor of the so-called eight clocks, of the coincidence counter, etc.
• 1845 - Experiments carried out in Paris by Laugier, astronomer, and Winnerl, watchmaker, relative to the influence of the suspension spring of a pendulum on the isochronism of its oscillations.
• 1847 - Jean-Célanis Lutz, in Geneva, imagines a special process for manufacturing tempered hairsprings.
• 1847 - Léon Foucault, French physicist, presents a conical pendulum clock to the Academy of Sciences.
• 1848 - P. Dubois publishes his Histoire de l'horlogerie in Paris.
• 1850 - Aron-L. Dennison introduced the manufacture of watches by mechanical processes to the United States.
• 1850 - Sylvain Mairet, from Le Locle, imagines his double-action winding mechanism for dead seconds with two gear train bodies.
• 1851 - Demonstration of the rotational movement of the earth by means of the pendulum, by L. Foucault.
• 1857 - Henri Golay, from Le Brassus, imagines the Grande Sonnerie watch with minutes.
• 1858 - P. F. Ingold, from Bienne, author of various machine tools for the manufacture of watches, invents the milling cutters for grinding the teeth which still bear his name.
• 1860 - Victor Kullherg, of Swedish origin, deposits at the Greenwich Observatory a chronometer fitted with a new pendulum system.
• 1860 - French engineer Ed. Phillips publishes his study of the regulating hairspring.
• 1862 - The house of Nicole & Capt, in London, exhibits the first chronographs returning to zero, the original idea of which is due to Henri Piguet, from Le Brassus.
• 1862 - Achille Brocot publishes in Paris Calcul des rouages par approximation.
• 1863 - Ad. Philippe, of French origin, publishes a book in Geneva on Keyless Watches.
• 1865 - Herm. Wengel, in San Francisco, proposes to unify the march of pendulums by compressed air.
• 1866 - Roskopf, from La Chaux-de-Fonds, creates the type of watch that has retained its name.
• 1867 - Moritz Grossmann, from Glashütte, publishes a treatise on the free anchor escapement.
• 1877 - Death of Jules Jurgensen, son of Urbain, born in Le Locle in 1803, author of a type of watch that bears his name.
• 1877 - C.-A. Paillard, a Genevan watchmaker, invents the non-magnetic and stainless spirals in palladium alloy; in 1885, he built non-magnetic pendulums with an alloy of the same nature.
• 1878 - Mr. Hipp, of German origin, established in Neuchâtel, builds his electric escapement clock.
• 1879 - Death of Henri Grandjean, born in Le Locle in 1803. Grandjean introduced in this locality, concurrently with Ulysse Nardin, the industry of marine chronometers.
• 1879 - H. Schuffelberger, from Neuchâtel, publishes his Calculation of clock wheel surpluses.
• 1883 - First application of the unification of the hour, or rather of the minute, by the division of the United States into four time zones, presenting a difference of 5, 6, 7 and 8 hours with the meridian of Greenwich. The same system has since been adopted, notably for the service of the railways, by Japan and all the States of Europe, except Spain, France, Norway, Portugal and Russia.
• 1888 - A. Bachelin publishes Forlogerie weuchôteloise on the occasion of the inauguration of the monument erected in memory of Daniel JeanRichard.
• 1889 - International Chronometer Congress held in Paris on the occasion of the Universal Exhibition.
• 1890 - L. Lossier, from Geneva, publishes his Study on the theory due to the adjustment of watches based on a work of the same kind by J. Grossmann, from Le Locle.