Abraham-Louis Perrelet History of a brightness watchmaker

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Abraham-Louis Perrelet History of a brightness watchmaker

Born January 9, 1729 in the Locle, Abraham-Louis Perrelet is one of the most famous watchmakers of all times.His father Daniel Perrelet, was a farmer and a carpenter. During the winter he manufactured some tools made tools, some of which were extremely fine and designed for watchmakers’ use. His path in life seemed clearly mapped out: he wanted to become a watchmaker. He thus became the first, in Le Locle, to to produce cylinder escapements, duplex escapements, perpetual calendar escapements and equation of time escapements.In spite of hisYoung age, he had already built himself a solid reputation and his expert opinion was much sought after.

He was also one of the watchmakers the most popular of his time, Abraham-Louis Breguet was trained in his workshops, as was his own grandson, Louis-Frédéric Perrelet, who went on to become official watchmaker to the Kings of France.

He spent his entire life at his family home. He passed away at Le Locle in 1826 after working for almost 80 years on perfecting his art, the art of watchmaking.

Abraham-Louis Perrelet

Inventor of the automatic watch

There are innumerable accounts testifying to this fabulous discovery of inventing the automatic watch by Abraham-Louis Perrelet. Thus, in 1777, Professor Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, one of the founders of the Société des Arts de Genève (Geneva Arts Society), embarked on a journey through the Neuchâtel region to make some useful investigations by visiting the watchmaking manufacturers and craftsmen. He informed the committee that a certain Mr Perrelet, a watchmaker from Le Locle, had made a special watch constructed in such a manner that it wound itself automatically in a person’s pocket just by the movement he made while walking, and that it ran for eight days. In his personal notes, de Saussure noted: «…from there we went to Mr Perrelet, the inventor of the watch which self-winds just through the movement of the person carrying it … He had to make the first model again because he hadn’t installed a stop mechanism and, on one occasion, when the selfwinding mechanism was shaken too much by a man running to the post office, it broke the watch. Mr Perrelet has now integrated an efficient stop mechanism. He had a lot of trouble finding out how to make it, but it works».

As for Frédéric-Samuel Osterwald, whom you may recall contributed to the editing of the Encyclopaedia of Diderot and d’Alembert, he asked Jacques-Louis Perrot for news about the watchmaking industry in the Neuchâtel Mountains. The latter replied as follows: «The perpetual motion watches which were invented two or three years ago in our mountains have aroused considerable curiosity and have done more than merely bring fame to these parts; these are bigger watches than usual and they are self-winding: all the wearer has to do is to walk around the room several times during the day, 8 minutes’ walk is enough to wind them up for 24 hours…».

Over the past 100 years, numerous historians have studied the rich heritage of Swiss watchmaking and extolled its origins. They have contributed as much to specialist publications as they have to prestigious brands in researching their past and have paid tribute to Abraham-Louis Perrelet, recognising him as the inventor of automatic watches.

Louis-Frédéric Perrelet

Inventor of the chronograph to catching up

The family Perrelet is a true dynasty in the universe watchmaker. Louis-Frédéric (1781-1854), whose name also went down in the history of watchmaking inventions. His grandfather trained him, and he completed his education at «L’Ecole Breguet». He set up business in Paris, working for the French Court and then the European royalty. His inventions included marine watches with measuring instruments, and he patented a split second precision chronograph in 1827.A large number of pieces in museums and private collections bearing the Perrelet signature were produced by Louis-Frédéric, and live on as historical references of the dazzling knowhow of that period. On Louis-Frédéric’s death in 1854 his son Louis, who was also a watchmaker to the king, took over his father’s business and carried on with the family tradition. It is thus thanks to the descendants, many of whom were watchmakers themselves, that the tradition of Abraham- Louis Perrelet, known as «the elder», has lived on to the twenty-first century.

Perrelet

A rich, prestigious past which guarantees the future

• 1777: The automatic watch movement with a central oscillating weight (“central rotor”) was invented by Abraham-Louis Perrelet.
• 1780: Development of the pedometer.
• 1827: Louis Frédéric Perrelet, Watchmaker to the King of France, submitted the patent for his split-second precision stop watch.
• 1827, 1828 and 1834: Three gold medals at chronometry contests.
• 1834: Louis-Frédéric Perrelet was appointed Knight of the Legion of Honour as a reward for his talent and perseverance.

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