DECLINE OF THE ENGLISH WATCH TRADE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1553, 15 February 1887, Page 3

DECLINE OF THE ENGLISH WATCH TRADE.

Sir John Bennett has been interviewed in regard to the extraordinary decline in the English watch manufacture; —“ Ton will acknowledge,” asked the reporter, “ That the English watch industry is in a wretched condition?” “Oh, yes," replied Sir John, "I grieve to say (hat that is a fact beyond Juestion, I cannot give you statietios j hub know that one English firm which need to make three thoneand watohee a year get* all its stock from Switzerland; (hat a number of operatives have been driven to direct their skill to the manufacture of telegraph instrument! and electrical apparatus, ae well at that of bioyles and tricycles • and that the great majority of the remainder (many of them men who used to earn their A 3 a week) have been driven into other occupations—aye, even into (he overcrowded ranks of the laborers. The change which has come over the condition of the watchmakers of England is in (ruth most melancholy. The number of English-mode watches stamped in 1860,1 believe, exceeded 200,000, a figure which proves that we were then practically meeting the wants of the world for the most costly description. Yet it at this moment I required a hundred English lever watches I don’t know where I could get them in Olerkenwell—indeed, I am not quit# enre I could get many more even in Coventry—for Bwiii-made movements are sent out from Coventry as well as from Olerkenwell as English-mad# goods. In fact, * English ’ watches offered for eale have been largely obtained, »o far at least as their movements are concerned, from Switzerland. The bulk of the ’Englieh’ watches made in Olerkenwell are the form known as chronometers, and these are made by German, Swiss and French hands. And, judging from a specimen which has just been sent me from Switzerland, it will not be long, too, before the manufacture of chronometers ie alec transferred from Olerkenwell to the Continent. Ye?, jou will correctly exprees the result of my experience and observation ’f you report meae declaring that few English watches are now nude in England, and that even many of the famed ‘ obronotpetere 1 are now the work of foreigners settled in England. The trade ij almost (/one i the manufacture is virtually dead. Yet. while this is so, the 8 *rio ftlqno are to qs w ishes to the value of over one million pounds per annnm.