FrançaisSkilful builder, daring inventor and tenacious, Ferdinand Berthoud was one of the pillars of the progress of watchmaking in the eighteenth century. Beyond his career, which is marked by an accumulation of titles, testimonials and privileges at the court of the King of France, a success earned especially for his marine chronometers, the watchmaker Berthoud was especially a man eager for knowledge, and anxious above all to share these with the greatest number.
Ferdinand Berthoud, master watchmaker and professor
Ferdinand Berthoud was one of those men who aspire just as much to develop their knowledge as to transmit it to the greatest number; that is why publications and teaching were part of his work, as were his watchmaking inventions. The man, who wrote several articles devoted to watchmaking in the Encyclopedia of Diderot and Alembert, and published in 1759 a first book of popularization, The Art of driving and regulating clocks and watches to the use of those who have no knowledge of horology was nothing like an elitist scientist curled up in his art. Berthoud was a great innovator and a generous personality who, rather than keeping his knowledge for himself and his peers, wanted to share it first.
Berthoud was born in Switzerland, in the country of watchmaking, on March 18, 1727, in Plancemont-sur-Couvet, in a family of notable who officiates itself in the field of timepieces. When he was 14 years old, his brother Jean-Henry took him as a trainee apprentice in Couvet; he also enjoys a solid scientific education.
We are in the middle of the Enlightenment, and it is in Paris, center of the intellectual and scientific influence of the time, that things happen, under the reign of Louis XV. At the age of 18, in 1745, Ferdinand Berthoud settled there in order to perfect himself in the profession of watchmaker-clock, with the master watchmakers of the Parisian community. The setting is ideal, and Berthoud will be able to leverage his gifts in science, engineering and mechanics – donations that will gently lead him to become one of the greatest watchmakers in history.
Berthoud was only 26 when he received the title of Master Watchmaker, by special favor of the King of France. A year earlier, in 1752, he impressed the jury of the Royal Academy of Sciences by submitting to his judgment a project of making a pendulum equation, a brilliant proof of his exceptional talents in watchmaking. It is the laudatory account of the academicians that prompts the king to award him his master’s degree, while he is still too young to claim this honor. Berthoud is then able to open his own studio in Paris, and his reputation is growing. This success that nothing stops culminates with the writing of articles for the Encyclopedia, published between 1751 and 1772 under the direction of Diderot and Alembert, as well as the publication of his first work of popularization in 1759.
Marine chronometers
At that time, the question of measuring longitudes occupied the scientific world. In France as in England, governments promise such rewards – and so high a prestige – that the most talented watchmakers are interested in this problem, especially John Harrison in London. In 1763, Berthoud will be commissioned by the King to go to England and examine Harrison’s marine clock – a mission to which he will oppose categorically. The French watchmaker will not waste his time, since he was elected “foreign associate member” at the Royal Society of London, February 16, 1764.
But before that, there is 1760, when Berthoud lays out a “Memoir on the principles of building a Navy Clock” at the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris. In 1761, he completed and presented the Navy Clock No. 1. In 1766, he proposes the construction of the marine clocks n ° 6 and 8. Completed, these are entrusted by the duke of Praslin to the Chevalier de Fleurieu, explorer and hydrographer, who must test them during a voyage aboard his corvette, L’Isis, to Santo Domingo. This life-size test is a success, especially for No. 8, which calculates longitude to half a degree. These two clocks, like many other works by Berthoud, are currently in the Museum of Arts and Crafts.
Berthoud continues its research, particularly in the direction of improving the accuracy of its marine clocks. By dint of working on the compensation of the effects due to the variations of temperature, he discovered in 1768 the average compensation; in parallel, he develops different exhausts. In any case, he devotes himself to the field of marine watchmaking, bringing from Switzerland his nephew Pierre-Louis, himself a talented young clockmaker, to assist him in the realization and maintenance of the mechanisms intended for French and Spanish Marines.
His successes (indirect) at sea lead Berthoud to be named, in 1770, Watchmaker-Mechanic of the King and the Navy. It is also responsible for providing the French Admiralty watches longitudes, essential tools for mapping and hydrography campaigns that will mark the end of the eighteenth century. In all, Ferdinand Berthoud designed, produced and delivered to the Admiralty ten or so clocks weight or spring. Faithful to his ambition, he devotes himself as well to the transmission of his knowledge, through two new books, in 1773 and 1775: the Treaty of marine clocks, which exposes in detail the manufacture of such an object, then Longitudes by the measurement of time.
The year of the publication of his ultimate work, 1807, Ferdinand Berthoud dies. He is buried in Groslay, in the Val d’Oise, where a monument celebrates his memory. He leaves behind an extraordinary work of unparalleled scale, composed of clocks, watches, chronometers, but also scientific measuring instruments and specialized or popular works.
The recognitions of Berthoud
It is at the end of career that the honors are concentrated. After his recognition with the King of France and the Royal Society of England, Ferdinand Berthoud:
- Is elected First Class Resident Member in the Mechanical Arts Section of the National Institute (1795);
- Wins the Institute of Science and Arts Prize for his stopwatches No. 27 and No. 32, in decimal division of time;
- Received the title of Horloger-Mécanicien de la Marine (1802);
- Receives the title of Horloger of the Observatory and Bureau of Longitudes of Paris (1805);
- Receives from Napoleon the title of Knight of the Legion of Honor as a member of the Institute (1804).
- The work of Ferdinand Berthoud occupies a very special place in the history of watchmaking, mainly via marine chronometers which he has made his specialty. But beyond his exceptional career, marked by so many recognitions before and after the French Revolution, Berthoud managed to immortalize the content of his research through a vast work of writing and publication, thereby inviting his successors to reproduce his constructions and to inspire them in their turn.