The area was already well known for its tools most importantly files, and metal works, which made it easier for business to thrive. Extremely high quality tools and metal were required by watchmakers so the industries were set up next to each other to make life simpler. Liverpool became a major commercial port by 1837, and this enabled watchmakers to supply other countries, especially America, with their high demand watches.
Prescot made rough watch movements and it is often mistaken that Prescot made the actual watches. This means that it was just the actual working parts of the watch that were roughly finished and assembled, the movements would then be shipped to finishers all over the country, and overseas, where they would be taken apart again, finished and put into cases, usually made of precious metals such as gold and silver.
The nature of the industry
Watch making was an example of what is known as a ‘cottage industry’. Cottage industries were a tradition of Lancashire, and included any type of manual work where goods were produced at home. The goods produced by a cottage industry were often on a piecework basis. That is when the goods are made to order when required. An order would be placed with the producer for a certain number of items, as and when required. All those involved in the watch making industry could earn a good wage doing this king of work properly and on time. Each craftsman would have one specialty in particular, spring making, watch hand making and so on. The various parts would come from each workshop and then these would be sent to an assembly workshop, where the rough watch movement would be constructed from all of the parts. These would then be sent to be finished (that is polished and made ready to be fitted into a case). Twenty individual branches of watch making were open during the mid Victorian period (1861).Trade directories from 1869 shows that Prescot had 19 individual branches of watch making companies. There were no known finishers in Prescot but there were in Liverpool.
Everyone wanted to be involved in the Watch making trade at the start of the Victorian period. It took around 7 years to create an apprenticeship as it required a lot of skill to produce the small parts in a watch, and if the master was a good teacher, the apprentice would have learned all of the necessary skills to carry out at least one branch of watch making. Apprentices were taken on at 13 or 14 years of age and parents paid the master for the training, the sum of money paid was called a `premium’. For the first year to two years wasn’t a very demanding job for the apprentices, all they had to do were basic chores such as preparing the workshop fire, cleaning, and providing a messenger and delivery service for completed parts.
After the first couple of years, the technical training would begin. The apprentice would work towards becoming a fully trained watchmaker, and maybe at the end of his training, open up his own business or work for another watchmaker.
The working conditions of the watchmaker were very good in comparison to other manual trades of the day such as mining or farming. Well lit workshops were out of necessity due to the lack of electric lighting, they were heated, and the work carried very few dangers. The tasks connected with heat were the most dangerous, such as casting or forging, and gliding. Gliding was the plating of watch parts with a thin layer of gold. The procedure required the use of mercury, a dangerous metal, which can lead to poisoning, resulting in the loss of teeth or madness.
The Decline of the Industry
The industry peaked around the 1860’s, but soon it started to decline. The Waltham watch company of America was the main reason for the deceleration of watch making in England.
It was set up in 1850, but after a number of set backs, one being the American civil war of 1861 – 1866, it started to produce good, reliable watches by the 1870’s, and sold them for very competitive prices, undercutting the British watch makers. The secret to their success was the manufacturing factory system. Watches were made in bulk on specially designed machines, all in one building. They produced watches of various levels of quality, so they provided watches that the wealthier members of the working class could afford. Because Prescot made their watches one at a time and by hand, this meant that the prices for the produce had to be higher, and as a result, the demand for Prescot watches declined. A report into the industry in prescot carried out in 1871 shows first hand situation. It makes a statement that even by that date, watchmakers were often poverty stricken, which meant it was not an attractive profession to be involved in.
During the initial part of their training, apprentices were treated little more than slaves and the quality of training also started to decline. At the end of their apprenticeship, many lacked the training needed to be a watchmaker.
By the 1880’s, it was in serious trouble, many of the watchmakers ended up in the workhouses situated in nearby Whiston according to the census records. The Swiss watch making industry was beginning to grow around this time, and used almost the same methods as the Americans did. They produced cheap watches, as the Americans did, but although many came nowhere near the standard of those from Prescot, They were more affordable therefore more popular among the working class citizens.
However, Prescot was not entirely behind the times. Two men had a major impact on the British watch making industry. John Wycherley was the first person to use steam powered machines to produce watch parts. They were of very high quality, and the watch movements were made in a number of specific and standardized sizes.
This meant that for the first time Prescot made watches and had the beginnings of a very important feature in regard to mass production, and that was interchangeability. When a watch movement was cased, it was specially fitted, and this took time, which added to the price of the watch. If the cases could be made to fit the movement is mass production, very little time would be required to fit the movements meaning the watch would be cheaper along with other things.
Another important watchmaker form Prescot is T.P Hewitt. Hewitt introduced a new type of keyless winding for pocket watches, before this, most watches had to be wound with a small key. The middle of the 18th century was the start to keyless winding, but these winding mechanisms were separate units that were attached to the watch. Hewitt added the winding mechanism into the movement fully, and it was activated by winding a round button on the top of the watch stem. This was a very important change as it made production quicker and therefore cheaper, as well as making keyless winding much simpler. Almost all keyless watches after this date used variation on T.P Hewitt’s invention.
Even though these gifted men introduced methods and ideas into the Prescot watch making industry in an attempt to keep it competitive, it had all but gone from prescot by the mid 1880s. A decision was made to act, and T.P Hewitt was one of the founding members of the Lancashire Watch Company. The building was completed in 1889, and it was based on the American Factory system of manufacture, where complete watch movements were made, by machines, under one roof. The factory was fitted out with machines to produce the watch parts, powered by a steam engine called the Horologer (Horology is the correct name for the study and production of clocks and watches).
They made a range of watches too suit all the poorest of pockets. It lasted into the 20th century and had some success, becoming a major producer of watches in Britain. However, foreign competition was too great and by that time, very well established. This combined with poor marketing, especially overseas led to the company being forced to close its doors in 1910. Some small workshops still produced time pieces in Prescot until the middle of the 20th century, but the watch making industry in Prescot effectively ended with the closure of the Lancashire watch company.