Jean Romilly (watchmaker)

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Jean Romilly (born June 27, 1714 in Geneva , † February 16, 1796 in Paris ) was a Geneva watchmaker , journalist and encyclopaedist .

Live and act

Jean Romilly was born in Geneva as the son of the watchmaker, horloger Pierre Romilly (1681–1717) and his wife Jacqueline Balexert (1691–1735). They married on April 15, 1707. In addition to Jean, the couple had three other sons, Jean-Jérémie, Louis and Jean-Louis Romilly. The family originally came from France, Gien-sur-Loire , which they had to leave because of the repeal of the Edict of Nantes .

Jean Romilly first worked in the family business of his father, his uncle and his three brothers. In 1734 he left Geneva and went to Paris, where he lived on Place Dauphine. Jean Romilly married Elisabeth Andrienne Joly (* 1711) there in 1738. The marriage resulted in two children, the son Jean-Edme Romilly and the daughter Jeanne Romilly (1743-1814). He passed his master watchmaker examination in 1752.

Romilly wrote several specialist books on the watchmaking trade. He was personally acquainted with Denis Diderot and Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert and wrote about twelve articles for the Encyclopédie . So about the technical and manual aspects of watchmaking. In 1754 he presented a document on escapement to the Académie des Sciences in Paris . He was also in contact with his friend Jean-Jacques Rousseau throughout his life .

In addition to watchmaking, Jean Romilly also dealt with meteorology . He is said to have presented a marine chronometer to the Académie des Sciences around 1766 at about the same time as Pierre Le Roy and Jean-Pierre Tavernier (1714–1795) . However, this was damaged during an inspection in the country, so that Jean Romilly was forced to take his chronometer out of the competition.

In 1777 he and his son-in-law Guillaume Ollivier de Corancez (1780–1816) founded the Journal de Paris, the first French daily newspaper to be regarded as the organ of the enlightened bourgeoisie.

The clockmaker Jacques-Frédéric Houriet (1748–1830) worked for Romilly for a short period around 1760.

Works (selection)

  • Mémoire sur une pendule à baromêtre. (1783)

literature

  • GH Baillie: Watchmakers and Clockmakers of the World. (1929) Reprint Read Books, 2006, ISBN 1-4067-9113-X .
  • Kathleen H. Pritchard: Swiss Timepiece Makers 1775 - 1975. Phoenix-Verlag, USA. ISBN 0-9146-5979-0 .
  • RA Leigh (ed.): Correspondance complète de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 52 vols. 1965-1998.

Web links

Wikisource: Jean Romilly  - Sources and full texts (French)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Watch-wiki. The great watch lexicon
  2. ↑ Biographical data of the wife
  3. ↑ Frank A. Kafker: Notices sur les auteurs of 17 volumes de "discours" de l'Encyclopédie (suite et fin). In: Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie. 1990, Volume 8, No. 8, p. 113.
  4. ^ E. Haag: La France Protestante. t. 8, Joël Cherbuliez, Paris 1858. p. 513.
  5. ↑ Genealogy of the family at geneanet.org.
  6. ^ Barbara Roth / AL: Jean Romilly. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  7. ↑ Dictionnaire des journalistes (1600-1789). Jean Romilly (1714–1796)
personal data
SURNAME Romilly, Jean
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss watchmaker, journalist and encyclopaedist
DATE OF BIRTH June 27, 1714
PLACE OF BIRTH Geneva
DATE OF DEATH February 16, 1796
Place of death Paris