Ferdinand Berthoud was born in Plancemont-sur-Couvet on March 18, 1727, in the canton of Neuchâtel, and it was here that he took his first steps in watchmaking, guided by his brother. His future, however, lay elsewhere, in Paris where he arrived in 1745 at the age of eighteen. He entered the workshop of Julien Le Roy, one of the most gifted watchmakers of the day. A precocious youth, Berthoud’s talent earned him the title of master watchmaker at just twenty-six years of age. Some seven years later he published his first work, L’Art de conduire et de régler les pendules et les montres. His reputation now established, he was commissioned to write a number of entries for the Encyclopédie méthodique of Diderot and d’Alembert that was published between 1751 and 1772. Naturally, this expertise must serve a magnum opus. At a time when scientific expeditions were setting sail with no reliable means of calculating longitude at sea, Berthoud took up the challenge of building a precise and reliable marine chronometer - as did his mentor’s son, Pierre Le Roy, in France and, across the Channel, George Graham, Thomas Mudge and John Harrison.
Ferdinand Berthoud
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Ferdinand Berthoud was an insatiable inventor who threw himself headlong into perfecting a marine chronometer. As prolific at his writing desk as at his workbench, Berthoud produced more than 4,000 pages describing his works.
The need for an instrument that would keep accurate time on the high seas was by now so pressing that in the early 1700s the British Parliament, soon followed by the Academy of Sciences in Paris, offered a reward to whomever would prove ingenious enough to build this elusive timepiece. While in England John Harrison triumphed with his series of chronometers, in France Berthoud’s expertise came to the fore in the marine clocks he designed and built, alongside pocket watches and regulators. His scientific understanding of time measurement, which he set out in a number of reference books, earned him the title of Horologist to the Navy in 1762 then Horologist to King Louis XV in 1773. A member of the Institut de France since 1795, he was also elected to the Royal Society in London as an “associé étranger”. Horology can thank him for numerous other technical advancements including the invention of a spring detent escapement and an improved self-compensating balance. He also imported Nicolas Fatio de Duillier’s technique for piercing jewels. In 1804 Napoleon I made him a Knight of the Legion of Honour, three years before his death.
1759
Publication of his first reference work, L’Art de conduire et de régler les pendules et les montres : à l’usage de ceux qui n’ont aucune connaissance d’horlogerie (The art of operating and adjusting clocks and watches for those with no knowledge of horology). Hugely successful, it was translated into numerous languages.
1761
Completed construction of his Horloge Marine No 1.
1763
Publication of Essai sur l’horlogerie.
1768
Introduced pierced jewels (rubies or sapphires) into movements. A speciality of English watchmakers, this technique was invented by Nicolas Fatio de Duillier in 1704.
1773
Publication of Traité des horloges marines.
1782
Invention of a spring detent escapement.
1786
Improved the self-compensating balance.
1802
Publication of Histoire de la mesure du temps par les horloges.