James Vautrollier The exact dates of James Vautrollier’s birth and death are unknown, but he was active as a clockmaker in London between 1622 and 1641. He was one of the original group of clockmakers who petitioned the government for the Clockmakers’ Company Charter in 1622 to protect the domestic market from the threat of foreign craftsmen. As a result he was appointed one of the first Assistants of the Clockmakers’ Company when it was founded in 1631 and was made a Freeman of the Company in 1632. He took several apprentices during his lifetime, the first in September 1637 by the name of John Colson and another in April 1639 by the name of William Dobbe. Both of these apprentices were employed through Richard Masterson. Of Vautrollier’s surviving work there are several watches, but there is no evidence that he made any other form of timekeeper. Examples of his work can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and here on this website. See Vautrollier's gold doubled-cased Puritan watch, c1625.
