Ahasuerus Fromanteel
| Ahasuerus Fromanteel | |
|---|---|
| Born |
25 February 1607 Norwich, England |
| Died | 31 January 1693 (aged 85) Whitechapel, London, England |
| Occupation | Clockmaker |
| Nationality | English |
| Spouse | Maria de Bruijne Sarah Winnock |
Ahasuerus Fromanteel (25 February 1607 – 31 January 1693) was a clockmaker, the first maker of pendulum clocks in Britain.
Fromanteel was baptized in Norwich on 25 February 1607. He was the first of five children born to Leah and Mordecai Fromanteel, a wood turner. The Fromanteels were a highly respected Flanders family of the sixteenth century. Following Spanish conquest, members of the family fled across the sea to East Anglia, establishing themselves in Colchester, Norwich, and London.
Ahasuerus Fromanteel was apprenticed for seven years to a blacksmith, before settling in London in 1629. He began as a crafter of steeple clocks in East Smithfield, near the Tower of London, becoming a member of Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths in 1631. He made lantern clocks with balance wheel escapement, and spring-driven table clocks, and joined the Clockmakers' Guild in 1632. In 1658 Fromanteel were taken before the guild for hiring more apprentices than the rules stipulated, which suggests that the firm was thriving. He developed microscopes and lenses, building on the work of Cornelis Drebbel and Benjamin Worsley in Amsterdam.
Fromanteel married Maria de Bruijne in 1631 and together they had eight children of whom four became clockmakers themselves. From birth Fromanteel was involved with the Dutch Reformed church, however he and his wife were rebaptised and formally transferred to the Baptist faith.
In 1657 Ahasuerus's son John Fromanteel began studying pendulum clocks, invented by Christiaan Huygens (1656). Before the invention of the pendulum clock, timepieces were accurate to only within ten to fifteen minutes a day. The use of the pendulum made for near frictionless time keeping, ensuring that the mechanism lost measurement of only a few seconds a day: a sixty-fold improvement. It was termed a "horological breakthrough". This revolution in time keeping could be said to have caused industrial espionage on a grand scale. Although claimed by Samuel L. Macey to have caused "industrial espionage on a grand scale" it has been argued by Theodore M. Porter, that Macey fails to conform with the normal writings associated with history. That Macey can be accused of rambling and quite often losing the point of an argument he is trying to make. Therefore there is not much academic scholarship to be associated with Macey's argument that Fromanteel was guilty of any form of espionage.
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