Week 49: My ancestor was a clock or watchmaker

[Jill on the A272]

Week 49: Clock/watchmaker



This is an opportunity to showcase a clock or watchmaker from your family tree, you might want to offer a short biography and speak about their work eg
Name
Birth location/date
Family background
Where you've found them on the census
Their workplace/employer
Any tips on researching this occupation?

Trades and Occupations - Family Tree Forum

[Next week: Hatter or milliner]

[Lin Fisher]

I have been trying to update my tree and last week came across a note written ages ago

John Boot born 1704 Kirkby in Ashfield. Said he was a clock maker and this family was extensively covered in a book in Nottingham Library.

Have found out a bit more as the Nottinghamshire parish records are on Ancestry. He is one of my 9 x G Grandfathers sons.

Note says he had 11 children and 2 of them were also clock makers

Someone had put a photo in an Ancestry tree of a clock presumably made by him.

[Jill on the A272]

On a distant twig of a branch of my husband's family tree is Charles Pierpoint (1759-1809) who is mentioned in the 1785 conveyance of Black Ven Farm in Fletching as a watchmaker of Cuckfield (the next parish to Lindfield where his family came from.) His brothers John and Thomas Pierpoint are also mentioned.

Though I have not been able to find out any more about him, there were three established clockmakers in Cuckfield at this period, the Gatland family, Walter Smith and Edward Bates so may have worked for one of those businesses.

[PhotoFamily]

John Chant, s/o John Chant and his wife, Martha, was born in St Lawrance Parish, Reading in 1747. His parents were Quakers by that time.

in 1762, John was apprenticed to a watchmaker in Henley upon Thames. His master was also a Quaker. Quakers/Friends had a tradition of clock and watchmaking.

In the 1770s, John started to have problems with the Society of Friends, and he is mentioned in several of the Monthly Minutes, culminating when the Friends disowned him.

By that time, John was married to Hannah. They had 4 children, one of whom died in infancy.

John (and Hannah) were never again members of the Society, but their children's births were recorded in the Friends' records, and both John and Hannah were buried in the Friends' Burial Ground in Reading.