Peter Henlein

Peter Henlein (also Hele or Henle) was a Nuremberg locksmith, the son of a brass-founder, who made small clocks and watches; little about his life is certain.^1, 2

In September 1504 he was involved in a brawl in which a fellow locksmith was killed, and took sanctuary in the Franciscan friary; after a long case he became a master of the locksmiths' guild on 16 November 1509.^1, 2

Johannes Cochlaeus praised him in 1511 for small iron clocks with many wheels that ran forty hours without weights and could be carried at the breast or in a purse. Whether Cochlaeus's word 'pulsant' means the watches struck the hours or simply ticked is uncertain.^1, 2, 3

Nuremberg's accounts record payments to him: 15 gulden on 11 January 1524 for a gilded pomander with a clock, and in January 1525 for a 'selbgeend arologium' in a silver-gilt case.^1, 5

The German Wikipedia says his customers included princes: he supplied small clocks to the ducal court of Mecklenburg at Schwerin between 1526 and 1542, and Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg in 1529; two of his letters, one in his own hand, were found in Schwerin after the 2014 exhibition.¹

He also built large clocks: in 1541 he made a tower clock for the Nuremberg castle of Lichtenau, and he advised on the church clock at Hersbruck.^1, 2

No surviving watch can be firmly called his. The Germanisches Nationalmuseum's 'Henlein watch' signed 1510 was found to be largely a 19th-century assembly; the German Wikipedia says a drum watch in the British Museum can be attributed to him with high probability, and a pomander watch dated 1505 is claimed for him by its owner's experts.^1, 3, 6

He did not invent the mainspring, which was in use in clocks by about 1430, decades before his birth, though popular accounts still credit him with it.^2, 7, 8

Two accounts of him compete. In the German tradition he is 'the inventor of the pocket watch', named so in the Walhalla in 1842; the Germanisches Nationalmuseum and the Leibniz Association now treat his role as inventor as refuted, crediting many European workshops in the 15th and 16th centuries.^2, 3, 9

His reputation grew in the 19th century: a novel by Karl Spindler made him a hero, the engineer Franz Reuleaux called for a monument in 1898, a Henlein stone was set up before the German watchmaking school at Glashütte in 1903, and a bronze statue by Max Meißner was unveiled on a fountain in Nuremberg in 1905.^1, 2, 3

The fountain statue is an imaginary portrait: no likeness of Henlein survives, which is why the Walhalla gave him an inscription and no bust.³

Under National Socialism he was used as a national figure: Veit Harlan's 1939 film 'Das unsterbliche Herz' romanticised him and Germany issued a stamp in 1942 naming him the inventor of the pocket watch.^1, 2, 9

Even his birth year has been fought over: in 1979 and 1985 the Germanisches Nationalmuseum and the German watchmakers quarrelled over which anniversary to celebrate, and Jürgen Abeler of the Wuppertal clock museum published a full documentation, 'In Sachen Peter Henlein' (1980).^1, 2