Salomon Coster

Salomon Coster (* around 1622 in Haarlem ; † December 1659 in The Hague ; also Salomon Hendricxz ) was a 17th century Dutch watchmaker . He was the first watchmaker to make a pendulum clock .

Life and watchmaking achievement

Drawing of the first pendulum clock by Salomon Coster

Salomon Coster received a thorough training as a watchmaker in Haarlem and was already making high-quality travel and carriage clocks around 1640 . Shortly after his marriage in 1643, he moved to The Hague.

In 1656 , the Dutch astronomer, mathematician and physicist Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) discovered the pendulum law and developed the idea of ​​using a pendulum as a regulator for clocks.

On behalf of Huygens, Coster succeeded in designing and manufacturing a movement based on this new principle. The first clocks lasted around eight days, with the clockwork and striking mechanism being driven by a single spring. On June 16, 1657, Coster was granted the privilege of being the only one to manufacture and sell this type of watch for twenty-one years. He therefore signed his first pendulum clocks with " Samuel Coster, Haghe, met privilege 1657 ".

From 1657 Coster employed John Fromanteel , the son of the well-known London watchmaker Ahasuerus Fromanteel , for at least eight months in his workshop in The Hague. On September 3, 1657, a contract was signed that allowed Fromanteel to also manufacture these clocks. Fromanteel made Huygens' invention known in England. A year later, Coster worked for a while with the French watchmaker Nicolas Hanet , who later brought at least eleven watches to Paris and resold them there. The watches attracted a great deal of attention and interest because of their good rate results.

After his sudden death in December 1659, his widow continued the watchmaking business for a year. Then it was taken over by Pieter Visbagh (1634-1722), a clockmaker from Middelburg with whom Coster had already worked from 1646 to 1652.

Preserved watches

Due to his premature death in 1659, Coster could hardly make use of his privilege and only made about thirty pendulum clocks himself, seven of which still exist in museums and private collections today. Some of his early travel clocks have also been preserved.

A clock from 1657, the year in which Huygen's invention was patented, was discovered by chance in May 1923 in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam , where it had been forgotten and was hanging unmarked on a wall in the exhibition. After a later renovation of the museum, it was lost again. The oldest surviving pendulum clock by Coster also dates from 1657. It is now in the Boerhaave Museum in Leiden in the Netherlands .

Coster's pendulum clocks lasted between 30 hours and 8 days. They were driven either by springs or weights, and several clocks had striking mechanisms. The movements were mounted in simple watch cases veneered with ebony. In a letter to Ismael Boulliau in January 1659, Huygens, in whose name the watches were sold, names prices between 48 and 130 guilders .

Based on Coster's clocks, the well-known Dutch type of clock, the Haagse Klok, developed .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} C. Spierdijk: Klokken en Klokkenmakers . de Bussy, Amsterdam 1965.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Hans van den Ende: Huygens's Legacy, The Golden Age of the Pendulum Clock . Fromanteel Ltd., 2004

literature

• Dr. R. Plomp: Spring-driven Dutch pendulum clocks 1657-1710 . Interbook International BV, Schiedam 1979, ISBN 90-6397-021-8 .

Web links

• Museum Boerhaave in Leiden (Dutch, illustration of the oldest surviving Coster clock)
• Museum van het Nederlandse Uurwerk (Dutch / English, illustration)