Huguenot contributions to London clockmaking The displacement and subsequent arrival of skilled Huguenot artisans in London contributed immensely to London’s status as the premier centre for clockmaking in Europe during the 16- and 1700s. During the 15- and 1600s, French Protestants found themselves at odds with the French government and more broadly the Catholic Church. France was a Catholic country, and Huguenot beliefs (specifically Calvinism and Lutheranism) were considered a direct challenge that threatened to undermine the Catholic Church and, by way of association, the state. Because of this, Huguenots were considered heretics, and in 1536 the French government issued a general edict urging their extermination. Bloody conflict between the two religious groups soon followed and continued to play out in various acts of violence, persecution and war into the next century. This resulted in the flight of hundreds of thousands of Huguenots to neighbouring Protestant states, including England. The trigger for the first wave of Huguenot emigration was the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre. The St Bartholomew’s Day massacre During the French Wars of Religion (1562–1598), it was the notorious St Bartholomew's Day massacre on 24–25 August 1572 that marked the start of a wave of violence directed against Protestants across France. In the massacre, Catholics mobs assassinated Huguenot leaders and indiscriminately slaughtered their followers throughout the city. The massacre was the product of political subterfuge and religious rivalries running rampant in the French court. These rivalries threatened the resumption of civil war. The French Wars of Religion began in 1562 in response to the massacre of Vassy, in which up to a hundred Huguenots were killed. Since then, there had been various outbreaks of civil war between French Protestants and French Catholics. To prevent the eventuality of another war, the Huguenot Admiral Gaspard II de Coligny advocated for war in the Low Countries against Spain and the French King Charles IX was coming round to this approach. However, Catherine de’ Medici, the King’s mother, was adamantly opposed to such a course of action. To curb de Coligny’s influence over her son, she colluded with the Catholic House of Guise, who were attempting to orchestrate the assassination of the Huguenot Admiral in retaliation for the murder of François de Guise in 1563. In August 1572, Huguenot nobility travelled to Paris, a Catholic city, to celebrate the marriage of the Protestant Henry of Navarre to Princess Margaret, sister to King Charles IX. The wedding took place on 18 August. Four days later, there was a failed assassination attempt on de Coligny. The Huguenot nobles were livid, and Catholics feared that the assassination attempt would fuel a Huguenot rebellion. Although the King promised to punish the culprits, an army of 4000 men commanded by de Coligny’s brother-in-law camped just outside Paris – an act that seemed to confirm Catholic fears. Also fearing rebellion as well as exposure for her role in the House of Guise conspiracy, Catherine attempted to cover her tracks by plotting with Catholic nobles to kill the Huguenot leaders. On the evening of 23 August, Catherine, along with her numerous Italian advisers, met with Charles to discuss the crisis. No details of the meeting have survived, but it is widely accepted that the King agreed that the Protestant leaders must be eradicated. Shortly afterwards, the municipal authorities of Paris were summoned. Their instructions were to mobilise the citizenry to prevent any attempted uprising by the Protestants and to secure the city gates. It is believed that the ringing of the bells for matins at the Church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois near the Louvre would be a signal for the attacks to begin. The killings began just before dawn on 24 August, St Bartholomew’s Day. Admiral Coligny was one of the first victims. He was brutally beaten and thrown out of his bedroom window. Huguenots were dragged from buildings by mobs of Catholic Parisians and slaughtered throughout the city well into the next day. Charles issued a royal order on 25 August to try to halt the bloodshed, but it had little effect. Violence spread to the provinces of Rouen, Lyon, Bourges, Boudreaux and Orleans, and disturbances continued into October. Scholars estimate that 3000 French Protestants were killed in Paris, and as many as 70,000 across the country, over the course of these few months. Instead of quelling Huguenot rebellion, as Catherine had hoped, the massacre inflamed hatred between Catholics and Protestants and marked the resumption of the French Wars of Religion, which lasted until the end of the 1500s. During these wars, some 300,000 Protestants were murdered, and others all over Europe lived in fear for their lives. The St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre certainly precipitated a Huguenot diaspora from Catholic to Protestant states. Many fled to England, where the Protestant Queen, Elizabeth I, especially welcomed skilled Huguenot artisans such as the early clockmakers John and Nicholas Vallin, who emigrated to London in 1590. Talented Huguenot clockmakers seeking religious freedom certainly contributed to the burgeoning clockmaking market during the late 1500s in London. This was thanks, in part, to the fact that London was much less restrictive than the highly regulated European markets. For example, clock production in Augsburg (an early clockmaking centre of Europe) was tightly controlled by its powerful guild, and the clockmaking guild in Germany was also ‘well-developed’. By way of contrast, in London, where the Vallins worked for 13 years (until their untimely deaths from plague in 1603), there were no similar restrictions. It was not until 1631 that a clockmaking guild, the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, was established in London. It was chartered by King Charles I. The Huguenot rebellions The unease between Catholics and Protestants continued to fester in France into the next century, again erupting in conflict as the Huguenot rebellions, an ongoing series of revolts occurring between 1620 and 1629. After the death of King Henry IV of France in 1610, his successor, King Louis XIII, was significantly less tolerant of the Protestant faith. As was the case with King Charles IX in 1572, Louis’ intolerance of the Huguenots is thought to have been due to the influence of his Italian Catholic mother Marie de’ Medici, a member of the wealthy and powerful House of Medici (as Catherine de Medici, Charles’s mother, had been before her). The French Huguenots were located mainly in the southwest of France. To defend themselves against ever-increasing levels of persecution, they began to defend themselves by establishing independent structures and political contacts, and occasionally engaging in open revolt against the French government. The first rebellion was triggered by the 1620 military annexation of the Huguenot province of Béarn to France, which resulted in the local government being replaced with a French-style parliament on which only Catholics could sit. The Huguenots responded to this event by gathering at La Rochelle and deciding to forcefully resist Royalist intervention: they settled on establishing a state within a state. This Huguenot state would be independent of military commandment and have its own independent tax system under the direction of the group’s leader, Henri de Rohan. Hence, these revolts are sometimes called the Rohan Wars. Louis XIII responded immediately to this open act of defiance, marching an army to the south to deal with the rebels. Several sieges and naval battles took place between 1621 and 1622, including the Battle of Saint-Martin-de-Ré in October 1622. This first rebellion ended when the Treaty of Montpellier was signed in 1622; however, the terms of peace demanded that the Huguenot fortress in the city be immediately dismantled. This peace did not last long. In 1624, relations between French Catholics and Protestants soured even further. The failure of Louis XIII to uphold the terms of the Treaty of Montpellier fuelled resentment, and in February 1625, de Rohan’s younger brother, Benjamin de Rohan de Soubise, led a second revolt and captured the island of Ré, near La Rochelle. La Rochelle then voted to join the rebellion in August 1625. This success was short lived, as Ré was captured by royal forces in September. Soon thereafter, an agreement was reached, and the Treaty of Paris was signed between La Rochelle and Louis XIII in February 1626. This treaty preserved the Huguenots’ religious freedom as long as there was no further rebellion. Again, the peace was not to last. The third and final Huguenot rebellion was instigated by English military intervention. With the backing of King Charles I, George Villiers (1st Duke of Buckingham) was sent to France with eighty ships, his task being to control approaches to La Rochelle and to incite further rebellion against the French King. Villiers landed on the Île de Ré in June 1627, thus provoking the Anglo-French War (1627–1629), which began with the siege of La Rochelle. The Huguenot rebels and their English allies were led by Cardinal Richelieu. Despite their audacious arrival, the English got off to a faltering start and suffered heavy casualties. The citizens of La Rochelle also suffered terribly throughout the siege, with their numbers declining from 27,000 to just 5000 due to the warfare itself, or to famine and disease. Surrender was inevitable, and the English were forced to retreat after a gruelling 14 months. While Henri de Rohan continued directing Huguenot resistance in southern France, the forces of the French King intervened once more, and, after the Siege of Alès in 1629, Rohan’s forces finally submitted to the Crown. This final rebellion was formally ended by the Peace of Alès. It was an uneasy peace, as the treaty resulted in the loss of territorial, political and military rights for the Huguenots. Even though they retained the religious freedom granted to them by the Edict of Nantes, they were left entirely at the mercy of the crown. A final blow: the Edict of Fontainebleau (1685) The last Huguenot rebellion was followed by a brief period of relative stability. This ended when Louis XIV succeeded to the throne in 1643. He began to pursue a vigorous campaign of persecution of Huguenots, imposing penalties against them and closing their schools. In 1685, the King enacted the Edict of Fontainebleau.This was the final blow. The Edict formally revoked the Edict of Nantes and abolished all legal recognition of Protestantism in France. Huguenots were also prohibited from emigrating, and forced to convert to Catholicism. Some 500,000 Huguenots illegally fled the country, settling in Holland, Germany and England. Famous Huguenot makers in London Huguenots who made London their home brought their knowledge and skills with them. These artisans undoubtedly contributed to and influenced British clockmaking as well as the style of English decorative arts during the late 1600s. Famous Huguenot clockmakers include immigrants Nicholas Vallin and his father, John Vallin (mentioned above), who settled their family in London after they fled the alarming wave of violence and persecution that erupted across Europe after the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. Clockmakers David Ramsay, Ahasuerus Fromanteel and Edward East all employed Huguenot workers in their workshops, much to the irritation of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers. After the 1685 Edict of Fontainebleau prompted the exodus of the Protestants from Europe, more Huguenot artisans made London their home. These included the French-born Dutch architect, designer and engraver Daniel Marot, who was one of King William III's royal architects. Already famous upon his arrival, Marot was highly influential during the golden age of British clockmaking. During this time, clock cases were manufactured and designed by those who had been trained as cabinet-makers, and these artisans took their inspiration from the fashions of furniture. From the 1690s onwards, Marot’s French-inspired baroque style, popularly known as ‘William and Mary’, began to filter through to the construction of clock cases. A perfect example of this influence is a clock known as the 'Queen Mary Tompion' (coming soon to Clocktime).[1] It is a brass-inlaid red turtleshell miniature striking spring clock, made around 1693 by Thomas Tompion. Its red turtle shell Boulle case was most likely made by a Huguenot refugee, possibly even Marot himself. It is probable that Tompion and Marot knew one another and that there was some kind of exchange of ideas between the two, as some of Marot’s later engravings feature longcase clocks with remarkable similarities to those produced by Tompion in the 1690s. More than anyone, Marot was responsible for introducing the Louis XIV court style into England and was an agent of innovation and change within the Stuart–Orange royal court. Among the many Huguenot immigrants to England who significantly impacted the clockmaking trade were members of the Cabrier family from Lyon. Their story is documented in detail by the Huguenot Museum in Rochester, Kent.[2] The Cabriers became a celebrated dynasty of Huguenot clockmakers after settling in London during the 1700s. They produced outstanding longcases and pocket watches, and their clock cases reflect the influence of Dutch design and craftsmanship prevalent during the Restoration period. There were three generations of Cabrier clockmakers: the grandfather, father and son. All were named Charles. Charles Cabrier I was born in Lyons, France in 1670. After the Edict of Fontainebleau was issued in 1685, he and his family fled to Amsterdam, where his father, Jean, was made quite welcome by that city’s authorities. They invited him to establish a silk taffeta manufactory and even provided Jean with all the necessary equipment, start-up funds of 500 florins, and an annual pension of 250 florins. The only condition was that he train only local Dutch workmen. Jean’s son Charles Cabrier I eventually left Amsterdam for London. By the late 1690s, he had established himself as a clockmaker in the city and was admitted to the Clockmakers’ Company by redemption in 1697–1698. He opened for business first on Lombard Street and later moved his premises to the Sign of the Dial in Tokenhouse Yard. In January 1725, Cabrier I took on Huguenot descendant John Jacmar of St Giles-in-the-Fields as an apprentice. Cabrier I's son, Charles Cabrier II, was born in 1704 and baptised on 18 December that same year. Cabrier II was apprenticed to his father through the Clockmakers’ Company in 1719, was made free in 1726 and served as Assistant from 1750. Cabrier I’s second son, John, also became a clockmaker and was admitted to the Clockmakers’ Company in 1730. John took on apprentices in 1730 and 1736, but he died in October 1737 at just 35 years of age. He had no surviving children. The elder Cabrier I died around 1736, and his will was proved that year (PROB 11/678/103). Cabrier II's first son, Charles, died in infancy. His second son, also named Charles, was born in 1729 and became the third clockmaker of the family, Charles Cabrier III. Cabrier II became Master of the Clockmakers’ Company from 1757 to 1772. His success is apparent in his will (written in October 1774 and proved in July 1776). During life, Cabrier II lived in the well-to-do neighbourhood of Newington Green, and his shop and workshop were located on Broad Street. He bequeathed a tidy fortune to his surviving daughter, Rebecca: £6000 in 3% South Sea annuities as well as a cache of expensive silver objects and numerous possessions. He bequeathed some funds to his sisters, and the residue of his personal estate went to his son, Charles Cabrier III. His death was reported in the Morning Chronicle on 15 July 1776.[3] Cabrier III was born in 1729. He apprenticed first with his mother’s relation Richard Stone, a goldsmith in 1729, and then moved on to the watchmaker Thomas Fitter in 1744. He was admitted to the Clockmakers’ Company by patrimony in 1756. By the time of his death, he was known as a ‘one of the most capital watch makers in England’, according to the announcement of his death in the General Evening Post, 26–28 May 1778.[4] Cabrier II was rather progressive for his time. He educated his only surviving daughter, Rebecca, and left her a generous inheritance. Clearly astute in her own right, she ran the family business in her own name between the death of her brother, Cabrier III, in 1778 and her partnership with Gabriel Leekey in 1795. George III granted Leekey–Cabrier a royal license of authority to discontinue the use of the surname of Cabrier. The Leekey partnership then carried on with clockmaking until the business ceased trading in 1819, thus formally ending the legacy of the Cabrier dynasty of makers. Examples of clocks and watches made by the Cabriers have made their way into many museum and private collections. The British Museum has several Cabrier watches (and have identified a forgery or two) in their collection.[5] The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has seven Charles Cabrier watches in their collection.[6] And there is also the longcase with walnut case that is signed Charles Cabrier, London at the Huguenot Museum. Made by Charles Cabrier II, it was given to the French Hospital in 1752 by its maker, and the Museum describes it as a ‘prestigious gift ... designed to raise the profile of the maker and attract future customers’. Originally, it was installed in the directors’ room in the hospital’s original London premises in Old Street, Finsbury, where the trustees of this Huguenot charity met every month.[7] Ultimately, the level of work produced by Huguenot artisans such as the Vallins, Marot, and the Cabrier family boosted the English clockmaking industry and helped to ensure that it maintained its status as the premiere centre for clockmaking in Europe. Dr Kristin Leith, Senior Curator of Clocktime June 2023 End Notes [1] Carter 2021, 144–149, Catalogue No. 31; Dawson et al. 1994, 520, 531 and 534–535, pls. 32, 784–790; Evans et al. 2013, 396–399; Garnier and Hollis 2018, 350–351; Taylor et al. 2020, 34, Exhibit No. 4:6. [2] The Huguenot Museum, in particular, celebrates Huguenot immigrants and their contributions to English history. https://huguenotmuseum.org/ [3] Morning Chronicle on 15 July 1776, issue 2231. [4] General Evening Post, 26–28 May 1778, issue 6930. [5] The Cabrier watches in the collection of the British Museum comprise the following: (i) the striking clock watch, 1720–1725, Museum Number 1958,1201.27; (ii); a repeating verge watch, 1710–1720, Museum Number 1958,1201.28; (iii); a verge watch movement, 1710–1720, Museum Number 1958,1201.26; (iv) a silver-cased verge pocket watch, made around 1770, Museum Number 2018,8001.29; (v) a possible forgery, gold pair-cased quarter repeating verge watch, 1710–1720, Museum Number 1890,0807.2; and (vi) a forgery, silver pair-cased verge watch, 1750–1760, Museum Number 1958,1201.876. [6] The Cabrier watches in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum are as follows: (i) the clock-watch, made around 1740–1760, Accession Number 17.190.1459a, b; (ii) the pair-case watch with repeating mechanism, made around 1741–1742, Accession Number 32.75.37a, b; (iii) the pinchbeck paste-jewelled watch, made around 1740–1760, Accession 17.190.1461; (iv) the enamel-and-silver watch, made around 1740–1760, Accession 17.190.1458; (v) the silver and gilt-metal watch movement, made around 1740–1760, Accession Number 17.190.1460; (vi) the copper-gilt clock-watch, late 1600s, Accession Number 17.190.1510a; and (vii) the silver-cased watch, made around 1750–1775, Accession Number 2000.551b. [7] For more on the Charles Cabriers see https://huguenotmuseum.org/about/news/the-charles-cabriers-a-huguenot-dynasty-of-clockmakers/ References Carter, J. 2021. The John C Taylor Collection: Part II (Selling Exhibition Catalogue, Carter Marsh & Co.). Winchester: Carter Marsh & Co. Dawson, P. G., C. B. Drover and D. W. Parkes. 1994 [1982]. Early English Clocks: A discussion of domestic clocks up to the beginning of the eighteenth century. Woodbridge: The Antique Collectors’ Club. Evans, J., J. Carter and B. Wright. 2013. Thomas Tompion – 300 Years: A celebration of the life and work of Thomas Tompion. Walter Lane Publishing. Garnier, R. and L. Hollis. 2018. Innovation & Collaboration: The early development of the pendulum clock in London. Isle of Man: Fromanteel Ltd. Taylor, J. C. and K. Leith (with contributions from T. Phillipson and K. Neate). 2020. The Luxury of Time: Clocks from 1500–1800. Isle of Man: Fromanteel Ltd. Further Reading Jouanna, A. 2015. The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre: the mysteries of a crime of State (trans. Bergin, J.). Manchester: University of Manchester Press. Plassmeyer, P. 2019. ‘Scientific instruments as courtly objects’ in Making Marvels: Science and Splendour at the Courts of Europe, 113-20. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image Credits François Dubois (Amiens, 1529 - Genève, 1584) Le Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy, vers 1572 - 1584 Huile sur bois, 94 x 154 cm Lausanne, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts. Don de la Municipalité de Lausanne, 1862 inv. 729 © Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne François Dubois (Amiens, 1529 – Genève, 1584) Le Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy, vers 1572 – 1584 Huile sur bois, 94 x 154 cm Lausanne, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts. Don de la Municipalité de Lausanne, 1862 inv. 729 © Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne Henri de Rohan, 1579–1638, leader of the Huguenots. Anonymous: Henri de Rohan, 1579–1638, Nationalmuseum, Public Domain Mark 1.0 (CC PD) English Siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré 1627. PHGCOM, Jacques Callot 1630, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Édit de Louis XIV portant révocation de l'édit de Nantes dit édit de Fontainebleau, Octobre 1685. Reference codes: AE/II/887, Cote d’origine : J//943/3. Archives nationales-site de Paris. https://www.siv.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/siv/rechercheconsultation/consultation/ir/consultationIR.action?consIr=&frontIr=&optionFullText=&fullText=&defaultResultPerPage=&irId=FRAN_IR_057573&formCaller=GENERALISTE&gotoArchivesNums=false&auSeinIR=false&details=true&page=&udId=A1_341
