Watchmaking in Llangollen by Robert Hughes

Author: D.H. Bacon

111 pages, illus.

This book is the eventual outcome of what started as a simple exchange of watch material. Some movements involving Longines were exchanged for some part-finished pocket watch movements marked 'R.H.' Through the Prescot Museum, the author was able to make contact with the owners of some surviving documents and record books relating to these 'R.H.'movements and the company that made them. The resulting story, a detailed study of the business of Robert Hughes, a Welsh watchmaker and retailer during the second half of the nineteenth century, reveals much about the methods of British watchmaking of the period.

In his endeavours, Hughes experienced the problems of keeping a watchmaking business going at a time when the number of watches being imported was dramatically increasing. The account, on one individual's business, highlights the difficulties which led to the decline of the watchmaking industry in Britain.