Historian and CovSoc member, Peter James, tells us about the watchmaking industry in Coventry and some of the families that moved here from other watchmaking areas. Peter writes……
Three Watchmaking Centres
Back in the Nineteenth Century there were three major watchmaking centres in England. Prescot near Liverpool, Coventry and Clerkenwell near London. There was a flow of complete watches, movements, parts, materials and men between them.
By this time Britain produced more than half of the world’s watches with manufacture fragmented into specialist tasks carried out in small workshops or at home.
Liverpool family
William Prescott had an unfortunate start in life, born in the parish of St. Peter in Liverpool on 13th September 1808. He was illegitimate with his father’s details on his birth certificate stated as Ann Prescott. He was baptised some four years later in Liverpool where both of his parents names were disclosed. Ann Prescott a spinster of Fontenay and William Irlam a carrier from Wigan. There are no records but it appears that William trained as a watchmaker locally.
London Area
Like many watchmakers William Prescott later moved south.
On 25th October 1835 William Prescott married Grace Dimbleby at St. Leonards Church in Shoreditch, Middlesex. Grace also had a difficult start in life having been born in Hornsey Workhouse in Middlesex. Her mother was Martha Dimbleby and the parents name on the Baptism certificate dated 26th March 1793 just stated “illegitimate.”
By 1840 the couple were living in Elbow Place off City Road in Islington celebrating the birth of a son named William Henry Prescott born on 13th September. William’s occupation on the birth certificate is given as a Watchmaker. By 1851 the family were at 208 Hooper Street in the parish of St. James, Clerkenwell with six children. The eldest Ellen then 14 worked as a tambour maker. (A tambour was a circular frame for holding fabric to be embroidered). Included were twins William and John aged four but no William Henry who would have been ten or eleven. One can only fear the worst!
Move to Coventry
In 1854 the Prescott family moved from London to Coventry, a common step for watchmakers seeking better prospects. By the 1861 Census William was working as a watch finisher and living in Hearsall Cottages. This was a court with the Prescott family living in the back row. There were now six children with James born in Coventry in 1855 and Richard a year later in 1856. John and William the twins worked as watchmakers errand boys presumably helping their father in his watch finishing business.
Next Generation
William died in 1879 aged 72 while still living at Hearsall Lane. By then son James had become a watchmaker no doubt having learnt the skills from his father. James was working as a watch finisher in 1874 living at 7 Arden Street which was one of “Flinn’s Cottages”
John Flinn was a watchmaker from Prescot who came to Coventry and initially settled with his wife and seven children in Moat Street in 1827. In 1852 he moved into Earlsdon House on Earlsdon Street the first house to be built on the Earlsdon Estate. At the rear of this splendid Victorian villa was a small factory which employed 14 men and 5 boys. Alongside the factory fronting Arden Street, Flinn had a row of workmen’s cottages built for his employees.
When John Flinn moved out in 1868 Joseph White moved in. White had served a seven year apprenticeship with Nathaniel Hill in Chapelfields before starting a watchmaking business nearby in Mount Street in 1860.
The last Prescott watchmaker
After living in “Flinn’s Cottages” James Prescott moved to Much Park Street in 1875. It’s the year he married Sarah Trickett while he was working as a Watch Jeweller. By the time of the 1881 Census he and Sarah were living in a court in Gosford Street with a five year old son named Henry. The Census of that year described his occupation as a Watch Gilder.
Ten years later the family were living in Jordan Well with James and Sarah now having seven sons. She was working as a Silk Picker and James was now a Cattle Drover.
My mother remembered her grandfather James Prescott being a skilled watchmaker – so it remains a mystery how within a decade he turned to cattle driving. Perhaps the changing economy in Coventry or the decline of local watchmaking left him little choice. Cheap mass produced watches from Switzerland and the USA started to appear in England between 1880 and 1890.