Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Davies, Alun C.

Titel

English Chronometers Defy Decline

Ist Teil von

• The Rise and Decline of England's Watchmaking Industry, 1550-1930, 2022, p.297-316

Auflage

1

Ort / Verlag

Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2022

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• England's chronometer firms enjoyed favourable access to the small world market because the Royal Navy and Britain's merchant marine were their - and the world's - biggest customers. The few watchmaking firms that also made chronometers were joined in 1858 by Mercer and Kullberg. They rapidly earned high reputations through successes in trials and exhibitions. Both firms had proficient successors who sustained their achievements. A relatively static technology extended the longevity of old instruments following regular refurbishments. Mercer and Kullberg also supplied competitors at home and abroad with finished instruments and competition faded. Both firms reinforced their wide reach through domestic and foreign agents, unlike their parent industry, watchmaking. Prices were stable and leading makers were profitable and busy. Kullberg employed only seven men and a boy in 1871 and drew extensively on the skills of Clerkenwell's outworkers. Mercer moved to St Albans and attempted greater self-sufficiency. Implementation of the 'American system' for chronometer manufacturing was impractical because of limited new market demand. Not until the Second World War's need for radio silence was demand sufficiently large enough to induce the Hamilton Company to mass-produce chronometers.