Why Neuchâtel Matters in the Scientific History of Watchmaking

When people think about watchmaking in the canton of Neuchâtel, they usually think of the mountains first.

La Chaux-de-Fonds. Le Locle. Workshops in the Jura. Technical progress. Industrial development. That reflex makes sense. A huge part of the great watchmaking story of the region was written there.

But that is not the whole picture.

Because if the Montagnes neuchâteloises were central to the technical rise of horology, Neuchâtel itself also played an important role on the scientific side of timekeeping. Not just in craftsmanship, but in education, drawing, astronomy, precision measurement, and the public organisation of time.

Looking back at the city through the research of historian Rossella Baldi, another side of the story comes into focus. One that is less about the romantic image of the isolated watchmaker’s bench, and more about how knowledge, science, and precision were being structured and shared.

That is what makes Neuchâtel especially interesting.

Jean-Jacques Berthoud, Plan de la Ville et Faubourg de Neuchâtel, 1769, gouache sur papier, Musée d’art et d’histoire, Neuchâtel.

More than a backdrop

By the 18th century, Neuchâtel was already part of a wider watchmaking landscape. But what stands out in Rossella Baldi’s findings is how early the city became a place of transmission and technical culture.

One of the clearest examples is the Maison de Charité, housed in what is now the Hôtel Communal. Between 1739 and 1755, it hosted what appears to be the first institutionalised watchmaking training known in the canton. Daniel Jeanrichard, son of the famous Daniel JeanRichard, was engaged there to teach watchmaking to apprentices.

That changes the usual picture a bit.

Watchmaking here was not only being passed from master to apprentice behind closed workshop doors. It was also being taught, organised, and formalised. That already places Neuchâtel in a broader history than production alone.

Alexandre Girardet, Vue de la place de l'Hôtel de ville, 1796, gravure, Musée d'art et d'histoire de Neuchâtel.

A city where drawing mattered too

The same place tells another part of the story.

In 1787, the first industrial drawing school in the region opened there. Its goal was practical: to train young people in drawing for local industries, including textile printing and watchmaking.

That matters more than it may seem at first.

Precision watchmaking does not begin only with mechanical skill. It also depends on visual discipline, proportion, and the ability to turn an idea into form. In that sense, Neuchâtel’s watchmaking culture was already tied to technical education well before the 19th century made those links more obvious.

A Baillod trace in the story

There is also a direct Baillod thread in this history.

Rossella Baldi notes that François Baillod began a five-year watchmaking apprenticeship in Bevaix in 1764, supported through the Maison de Charité. It is a small detail, but a telling one. It shows how local institutions could open a path into the trade, and how family stories were shaped by that wider ecosystem.

History is often told through famous names and major inventions. But just as often, it is built through more concrete things: a place of learning, an apprenticeship, a skill passed on at the right moment.

Discover more about the Baillod 250-year watchmaking heritage.

Mention de l’accord pour l’apprentissage de François Baillod à Bevaix (1764) ; « Engagemens des aprentifs de la Maison de Charité », Archives de la Ville de Neuchâtel. 

Breguet passed through Neuchâtel too

Then the story gets wider.

During the French Revolution, Abraham-Louis Breguet left Paris and spent time in Switzerland between 1793 and 1795, including nearly a year in Neuchâtel. He also stayed in Geneva and Le Locle, but his presence in Neuchâtel matters because it places the city within a much broader network of scientific and horological exchange.

That is worth stopping on for a second.

Breguet is not just another important name. He is one of the defining figures in the history of modern horology. After returning to Paris, he would go on to patent the constant-force escapement in 1798 and the tourbillon regulator in 1801.

No one needs to exaggerate the link to see why this matters. Neuchâtel was clearly part of the intellectual geography around watchmaking at a decisive moment.

1805: when time became public

One of the most striking episodes in Rossella Baldi’s research comes in 1805.

That year, Neuchâtel became one of the very first cities in the world to distribute mean solar time to its population.

This was a major step. It meant moving away from a more variable, local reading of time and toward something more standardised, more scientific, and more precise. In other words, it was part of the shift toward modern timekeeping.

And the details make the story even better.

The initiative did not come from the city authorities themselves, but from the German mathematician and physicist Johann Georg Trallès. He had a meridian telescope and a precision regulator installed in the Hôtel-de-Ville for exactly this purpose. Trallès made the telescope himself and calculated the Neuchâtel meridian. The regulator clock was ordered from Courvoisier and Houriet in Le Locle. Its jewels were supplied by Abraham-Louis Breguet, and the pendulum was made using a special zinc alloy.

Louis-Aimé Grosclaude, Jacques-Frédéric Houriet dans son atelier, peinture sur toile, vers 1820, Chateau-des-Monts, Musée d'horlogerie du Locle.

That is not just a nice historical anecdote. It is a snapshot of how science and watchmaking were already intersecting across disciplines, cities, and specialist expertise.

And it happened in Neuchâtel.

Early, and earlier than most people realise

This episode matters even more when you remember that mean solar time only became widely standardised later, when railway traffic and modern coordination made it necessary.

So Neuchâtel was early. Very early.

That makes the city more than a secondary setting in the history of horology. It makes it part of the broader move toward modern timekeeping itself.

A different side of the watchmaking story

This is really the point.

When people think of watchmaking in the canton, they instinctively turn to La Chaux-de-Fonds and Le Locle, and rightly so. The technical and industrial achievements of the mountains are fundamental.

But Neuchâtel deserves its own place in that story too.

Not as a rival to the mountains, and not as an afterthought either. As the place where another side of horology was taking shape: the scientific side. The side tied to learning, observation, precision regulation, public time, and the early effort to organise time on a broader scale.

That is a different story from the usual workshop narrative, and in some ways a more surprising one.

Why it still matters

It still matters because it gives Neuchâtel a richer watchmaking identity.

Not just a city near the great centres of horology, but a city that played a real role in the way time was studied, taught, and made more precise. Craft was part of that. Science was too. Education was too.

And that overlap is exactly what makes the history so interesting.

Because watchmaking has never only been about making beautiful objects. It has also been about building systems of precision, transmitting knowledge, and improving the way humans measure the passing of time.

Neuchâtel was part of that story earlier than many people realise.

And once you see it that way, the city looks less like a backdrop to watchmaking history and more like one of the places where its scientific side truly came into focus.

This history is not only something to read about. Through the BA111OD X Watch Explorer offer, developed with Neuchâtel Tourisme, BA111OD invites visitors to discover Neuchâtel’s watchmaking story on the ground, from the city’s historic streets to the brand’s in-house atelier.

This article draws on historical research by Rossella Baldi.