Peter Henlein

German locksmith & clockmaker

Peter Henlein (also spelled Henle or Hele) He was one of the first craftsmen to make small ornamental portable clocks which were often worn as pendants or attached to clothing, and which are regarded as the first watches. Many sources also erroneously credit him as the inventor of the mainspring.

Henlein grew up in Nuremberg. His parents were Peter, a brass forger and citizen of Nuremberg since 1461, and Barbara Henlein. He had one older brother, Herman Henlein, who became also a master cutler in 1496. In his life he was married to three women: Kunigunde Ernst, his first wife, and Margarethe, his second, and Walburga Schreyer, his third wife. On September 7, 1504, he was involved in a brawl in which a fellow locksmith, Georg Glaser, was killed. As one of the accused he asked for and received asylum in the Franziskanerkloster Nürnberg of Nuremberg, where he lived until 1508. This monastery had a history as a center of scientific and astronomical knowledge. During his asylum he may have gained deeper knowledge of the craft of clockmaking there. “Every day they (the craftsmen of Nuremberg) invent finer things. For example, Peter Hele (Henlein), still a young man, fashions works that even the most learned mathematicians admire: for from only a little bit of iron he makes clocks with many wheels, which, no matter how one might turn them, show and chime the hours for forty hours without any weight, even when carried at the breast or in a handbag (purse).”Johann Neudörfers wrote in 1547 that Henlein invented the portable pomander watches (die bisam Köpf zu machen erfunden). A paper from 1524 records that Heinlein was paid 15 florins (one florin is approximately between 140 and 1000 modern US dollars) for a gilt pomander watch. His customers included the high society of the 16th century, f. e. Martin Luther, Kaspar von Schöneich (chancellor of Mecklenburg), Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, Kardinal Albrecht from Brandenburg, Philip Melanchthon, Mercurino di Gattinara as well as gifts which were given by the Nuremberg Council. The Peter Henlein Fountain was unveiled on the occasion of the opening of the watch exhibition in. The fountain was donated by the City of Nuremberg and the watchmakers’ association. Inscription: ‘IN MEMORY OF THE INVENTOR OF THE POCKET WATCH PETER HENLEIN FROM THE CITY OF NUREMBERG AND THE GERMAN WATCHMAKERS ASSOCIATION’. Much earlier, the Walhalla in Donaustauf, which is a memorial for "politicians, sovereigns, scientists and artists of the German tongue", honors Peter Henlein in 1842, at its inauguration with the words inventor of the watch. By coincidence, it was the 300th anniversary of his death. efn|Original words (Walhalla memorial): Erfinder der Sackuhren, Adalbert Müller wrote additionally 1884: Seines Zeichens ein Schlosser, wohnhaft in der seit Jahrhunderten durch Bewerbsamkeit und Erfindungsgeist sich hervortuhenden Stadt Nürnberg

The mainspring which made portable clocks possible, often attributed to him, actually appeared in the early 15th century, almost a century before his work.

Henlein did not create the typical Nuremberg eggs he crafted mainly portable pomander watches. Although they are associated with Henlein, and are a development of the watch making tradition of Henlein's time, they thus become popular only several decades after his death. The German word Eierlein "little egg" is a corruption of a diminutive of Uhr (Middle Low German ûr, from Latin hora) "clock", Aeurlein or Ueurlein (Modern German Ührlein). The association with "eggs" may arise with a 1571 translation of Rabelais by Johann Fischart in 1571; Fischart translated as Eierlein an instance of Ueurlein in Rabelais. This form of the name may have played a part in inspiring the oval shape becoming popular in the 1580s. The former watchmaker and art collector Jürgen Abeler from the Wuppertaler Watch Museum concludes about pomander watches in his book: "So if any one of the preserved watches at all should be linked with the person of Peter Henlein, it can only be this watch in the pomander." As a citizen of Nuremberg, Peter Henlein had the privilege of living in the midst of this intellectual atmosphere. The foundation on which the extraordinary development of his artistic craftsmanship was based was laid by the development and diversity of the crafts of metalwork and fine mechanics of Nuremberg. The atmosphere of the European Renaissance and the Renaissance city of Nuremberg was shaped by the energy of flourishing trade, the development of the civilisation and new cultural influences. Peter Henlein most likely procured this Oriental pomander in the monastery. The plague had descended on Nuremberg in 1505 and the pomander as status symbol had returned to the awareness of many of his high ranking contemporaries. In an age of new perspectives, it must have been very tempting to place the essence or spirit of time in the container of a fragrance dispenser.