The youth of Ferdinand Berthoud

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The youth of Ferdinand Berthoud - Ferdinand Berthoud
During the 18th century, Couvet, the native village of Ferdinand Berthoud, gradually became an important centre for the production of clocks and watch tools.

During the 18th century, Couvet, the native village of Ferdinand Berthoud, gradually became an important centre for the production of clocks and watch tools. At the time when these first industrial activities were beginning to emerge, the young man would find conditions in the Val-de-Travers entirely conducive to the blossoming of his exceptional talents.

The Val-de-Travers, an agricultural society experiencing transformation

Could Ferdinand Berthoud’s tutor, probably his brother Jean-Jacques, have guessed that this child so intently focused on his first arithmetic and grammar exercises would one day become one of the most brilliant scholars of his age, admitted into the highest academic circles and closely acquainted with King Louis XV? This might well have appeared all the more improbable for this seventh of eight children on a farm in a remote hamlet, in a strongly class-based society where being born a farmer, like the majority of the population, left little chance of escaping from this condition. Couvet, where Ferdinand Berthoud was born on March 18th 1727 was located in the Principality of Neuchâtel and Valangin belonging to the King of Prussia. It was ruled by a governor representing the authority of the sovereign and a State Council made up of members of the local oligarchy. The Protestant religion, adopted from the 1530s onwards, had strongly shaped the prevailing mind-set.The youth of Ferdinand Berthoud

Towards the late 17th century, the Neuchâtel mountain region began a slow process of socio-economic transformation. More and more farmers sought to find additional sources of revenue when their agricultural work left them time to pursue other activities, including watchmaking. In the Val-de-Travers, lacemakers, nail-makers, watchmakers and watch tool-makers supplied the merchants and city-based trading posts by working from home. A new class of watchmaker-farmers, workers and traders began to take shape. Some of these fervent Protestants acquired newfound wealth, yet without giving up their land and continuing to raise livestock.

Jean Berthoud, mason and architect  

Ferdinand Berthoud’s father, Jean, was a mason. He began his career at the Gimel church in 1702. He is later mentioned as an architect and entrepreneur as of 1712, in the Val-de-Travers, in the lake region, as well as in Neuchâtel where he had a number of commissions. Masons and carpenters from the Val-de-Travers were frequently hired for building work on the Swiss plateau, including for rectories, churches and stately homes – new constructions arising from a society experiencing a major social and demographic boom. Existing buildings no longer matched the desire for comfort to which the bourgeois aspired. Most of the fine houses in Couvet, Fleurier and Môtiers date from the 18th century or the tail end of the 17th century and were built in place of houses deemed to be too dilapidated. The fact that men from the Val-de-Travers came to specialise in construction work is clearly apparent from the first official survey conducted by the Sovereignty of Neuchâtel and Valangin, entitled Dénombrement des Peuples, des Pauvres et Autres and issued in 1750. The feudal chatellany of Vautravers comprised 3,097 inhabitants, including 255 masons, 91 carpenters and a number of locksmiths and cabinetmakers. There were 250 masons in the commune of Verrières, another nearby jurisdiction.  

The Plancemont branch of the Berthoud family

Jean Berthoud, son of Abraham, from Couvet, was christened in Môtiers in 1676 and died soon after 1753. His wife, Judith Berthoud, daughter of Balthazar, was born in 1682. The couple lived in the sunny hamlet of Plancemont, perched at an altitude of 800 above sea level, on the northern slope of the valley. They were to have eight children:

Abraham (1708-died young);  Jean-Henri (1710-1790), watchmaker-clockmaker; Jean-Jacques (1711-1784), technical draughtsman; Abram (1712-1789), architect ; Pierre (1717- ?), watchmaker-clockmaker; Jeanne-Marie (1721-1804), Ferdinand (1727-1807), watchmaker-clockmaker ; and finally, a second daughter, Suzanne-Marie, born in 1729.

The youth of Ferdinand Berthoud

Thanks to his work, Ferdinand Berthoud’s father earned enough money to reinvest in buying land. According to an official notarial deed dating from 1741, the year when Ferdinand began his apprenticeship, the Berthouds bequeathed all their chattels, furniture, home and livestock on their children. A fairly long list of the respective values of these items follows. The parents reserved the right to live in the house and enjoy the garden until their death, while authorising one or other of the children to use, where required, the various outhouses and the house itself. The latter was subsequently attributed to their son Abram “en considération de ce qu’iceluy a employé son travail et sa jeunesse à l’avantage de la maison” [given that he devoted his work and his youth to the advantage of the home]. This act also states that Jean-Jacques, who was 16 years older than Ferdinand, had trained as a technical draughtsman in Paris with the financial support of his parents. “La somme de mille huitante sept Livres délivrée en différentes fois à leur fils Jean Jacques à Paris, où n’est compris ce qui a été utilisé pour son education” [The sum of 1087 pounds was paid over in various stages to their son Jean-Jacques in Paris, an amount comprising only that which was used for his education]. Ferdinand was thus not venturing into entirely uncharted territory when he left the family home in 1745. In 1750, the Berthoud family home appeared in the survey in the following terms: “Plancemont, propriétaire : Jean Berthoud, un : architecte ; deux jeunes gens : 1 dessinateur et 1 orlogeur. 2 laboureurs, 1 enfant mâle, 2 filles et une femme” [Plancemont, owner: Jean Berthoud, architect; two young men: a technical draughtsman and a horologist. 2 labourers, 1 male child, two daughters and a wife]. While the technical draughtsman was undoubtedly Jean-Jacques Berthoud, the “orloger” could have been either Jean-Henri or Pierre.

The youth of Ferdinand Berthoud

The original version of this article was published on the Ferdinand Berthoud website. WorldTempus reproduces it with kind permission of the brand. 

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