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Clockmakers and watchmakers appear regularly in family trees, yet there are common misconceptions about what they actually did. This talk highlights a wide range of roles undertaken by people involved in making or perhaps selling Britain’s timekeepers—from the guild-regulated world of seventeenth-century London to the dispersed networks of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century specialists whose skills underpinned the nation’s horological industry, and into the world of twentieth-century volume production. Far from being lone artisans, most “makers” were part of tightly-interconnected communities involved in a great division of labour. Charting these networks is essential for understanding horological ancestors, correcting assumptions, and uncovering hidden women, migrants, apprentices and journeymen who rarely appear in standard reference books.
Drawing on a lifetime of research, and often on the extensive resources of the Antiquarian Horological Society (AHS), James will chart the use of some of the most effective tools for genealogists: livery company records, fire-insurance registers, censuses, directories, newspapers, bankruptcy notices, workshop ledgers, daybooks and more. With luck, attendees may discover some new source of information and potential research avenues.
January 2026
James Nye is a historian, lecturer and writer, focussed on the history of timekeeping. He first learned clock repair at school in Sussex, starting a lifelong involvement in horology. His PhD from Kings London used Victorian and Edwardian clock companies as case studies. He is the founder and main sponsor of The Clockworks in South East London, the world’s only museum, workshop and library dedicated solely to electrical horology. He has chaired the AHS for the last ten years, served as Master of the Clockmakers Company in 2022, and is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. In 2024 he was awarded the Harrison Medal for his extensive contribution to horology as lecturer, researcher and author. OUP published his history of the Smiths Group in 2014, and then A General History of Horology in 2022, for which James acted as an advisory editor, contributing several chapters. His most recent book, Clockmaking on Lothbury : Craft, Community and Conflict in pre-Fire London, concentrated on an early centre of clockmaking.
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