A Danish watchmaker in Coventry

Image: © A J Paxton Taken: 1 Oct 2022

This row of solid mid-19th century artisans' houses stands on Norfolk Street in Spon End, immediately to the west of the centre of Coventry. They resemble the watchmakers' houses of Chapelfields, further to the west, and in fact no. 16 has a blue plaque outside (just visible on the wall behind the lamppost behind the third car from the right). It reads: Watchmaking Heritage Trail 2000 16 Norfolk Street Residence and Workshop of Bahne Bonniksen Watch Manufacturer Inventor of the Karrusel Movement for Watches and Chronometers 1894 Commissioned by Coventry Watch Museum Project It can be seen at the Open Plaques site https://openplaques.org/plaques/47009 . Bonniksen was born at Bov in Slesvig (Schleswig) in 1859. After lecturing in horology for several years at the Coventry Technical Institute he set up his own workshop behind his house in 1892. There he employed twenty workers, making watch components and assembling them. The Karrusel movement, which he developed there, enabled watches to be held horizontally or handled more roughly without affecting their timekeeping and was also used for ships' chronometers. In later life Bonniksen designed speedometers for the motor industry. He was also a member of the Royal Astronomical Society; the Astronomy & Astrophysics Group at Warwick University has a short article on him here https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/astro/people/stanway/astrohistory/bonniksen/ . It cites a Coventry Evening Telegraph article by Keith Draper dated 2nd December 2000 which can be seen here https://www.thefreelibrary.com/memories%3a+The+city+watchmaker+who+create+Time%27s+finest+hour.-a067523789 .

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