Constant Girard (

La Chaux-de-Fonds La Chaux-de-Fonds () is a Swiss city in the canton of Neuchâtel. It is located in the Jura mountains at an altitude of 1000 m, a few kilometers south of the French border. After Geneva, Lausanne and Fribourg, it is the fourth largest city l ...

,1825 –

, 1903) was a Swiss

watchmaker A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since a majority of watches are now factory-made, most modern watchmakers only repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their part ...

from the 19th century, who marked his time by his developments in the

escapement An escapement is a mechanical linkage in mechanical watches and clocks that gives impulses to the timekeeping element and periodically releases the gear train to move forward, advancing the clock's hands. The impulse action transfers energy ...

systems, in particular that of the

tourbillon In horology, a tourbillon (; "whirlwind") is an addition to the mechanics of a watch escapement to increase accuracy. It was developed around 1795 and patented by the Swiss-French watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet on June 26, 1801. In a tourbill ...

. His most famous

watch A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached b ...

, the Tourbillon with three gold bridges, is still fabricated today in modern versions by the Swiss watch manufacturer,

Girard-Perregaux Girard-Perregaux SA () is a luxury Swiss watch ''manufacture'' with its origins dating back to 1791. Since 2011, the Swiss holding group of Girard-Perregaux, Sowind Group, has been a subsidiary of the French luxury group Kering. Headquartered i ...

His life

Constant Girard began his career apprenticed to the watchmaker of La Sagne, in the mountains of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. In 1845, he joined forces with watchmaker C. Robert. Around 1852, he practiced his profession under the name of “Girard & Cie,” at the side of his older brother Numa. In 1854, he married Marie Perregaux (1831-1912), who came from a family of watchmakers, and the two founded in 1856 the watch manufacturing company in La Chaux-de-Fonds that still carries their combined family names: Girard-Perregaux, which is still in existence today. His business developed rapidly, all the way to America and Japan. Constant Girard-Perregaux was equally active in the social, political, and economic life of

. He died in 1903.

The Tourbillon with three gold bridges

Constant Girard devoted many long years to studying and designing diverse systems of escapements and in particular that of the tourbillon. Invented at the very beginning of the 19th century, the tourbillon counteracted the differing effects of gravity on a watch held in the vertical versus horizontal position, thanks to a mobile cage that carries the settling organ.Website of the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie Constant Girard redesigned the three bridges, part of the watch movement, into the form of arrows parallel to one another. With a patented design in 1884, his Tourbillon with three gold bridges was awarded a gold medal at the

Universal Exposition A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...

of Paris in 1889.

Other accomplishments

Constant Girard was equally interested in the measure of time and he illustrated this in his chronometers watches. Girard-Perregaux were rewarded by several gold medals or diplomas from expositions in Europe and in America for his efforts. Some of its creations are presented at the Girard-Perregaux Museum situated in

, Switzerland. Constant Girard also produced the first ever major commercial production of a wristwatch, made for German naval officers and ordered by German Kaiser Wilhelm I for his German naval officers. Two-thousand such watches were ordered and produced, which represents the first important commercialization of wristwatches.

Notes

Sources

*François Chaille, Girard-Perregaux, Editions Flammarion, 2004,

External links