Just How Endangered Is Watchmaking?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/fashion/watches-unesco-craft-protection.html

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LONDON — As pub quiz tiebreakers go, it’s a good one: What do avalanche risk management, the art of building dry-stone walls, the Basel Carnival and the Winegrowers’ Festival in Vevey have in common?

Answer: They are the only things that, at least so far, Switzerland has sought to protect through Unesco’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Oddly enough, watchmaking — the skill that is all but synonymous with the country’s name throughout the world — isn’t on the list. That could change soon, but it has been several years in coming.

The convention, adopted in 2003 and active since 2006, allows member states to register what the United Nations organization describes as “traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants” — such as crafts, skills and cultural events. According to Unesco’s most recent count, 178 states have signed the convention (the United States, Russia, Australia and Britain are not among them).

Being recognized by the convention, much like being added to the well-known Unesco World Heritage site list, doesn’t change an activity’s future or financial status overnight. Primarily it just conveys a certain status that, presumably, might attract funding, increase business opportunities or be used to protect an activity or event were it endangered.

As for watchmaking, it “is seen as big business and a luxury business, which has a stain on it,” said Stephen Forsey, whose independent Swiss watchmaking company Greubel Forsey was approached in 2014 by Switzerland’s Federal Office of Culture for help with a request to add watchmaking to the Unesco listing. The office expects to file the application next month.

The view is that the watch industry is “for the super wealthy and should be able to look after itself,” Mr. Forsey said. "But because of industrialization, training has to be quicker, so you cut out foundational skills. There’s a loss of know-how and heritage — even in Switzerland.”

Mr. Forsey said he expected Unesco would take about 18 months to study the application, which also covers mechanical arts such as making music boxes and automatons and is being submitted in partnership with France. (That country’s current list includes falconry, Alençon needle lace-making and the “gastronomic meal of the French.”)

In Britain, representatives of some craft organizations and watch companies envy the Swiss situation.

Patricia Lovett, chairwoman of the Heritage Crafts Association, has been lobbying the government to sign the Unesco convention for almost 10 years. Last year, to further her campaign, she founded the All Party Parliamentary Group for Craft, which asks members of Parliament to support the effort.

“These skills are our heritage,” said Ms. Lovett, a professional calligrapher and illuminator. “Just because you can’t see them, it’s assumed they don’t matter. But when one of these crafts disappear, we all lose, just as when we lose a building.”

The crafts association’s second “Red List of Endangered Crafts” is to be published March 9, when the association is also to introduce its Endangered Craft Fund. For the first time, the critically endangered list will include watchmaking.

Ms. Lovett said getting crafts such as watchmaking listed on the Unesco convention would have significant benefits for Britain. “People come from all over the world for our craft skills,” she said. “We need to stress what makes us British, particularly after Brexit,” the country’s departure from the European Union, scheduled for March 29.

While watchmaking’s origin is seen as largely Swiss today, many founders of the modern industry were British, including Thomas Tompion, Thomas Mudge and John Harrison. Harrison’s 18th-century marine chronometers, for example, were essential navigation tools and played a significant role in the successes of the Royal Navy and the growth of the British Empire.

Rebecca Struthers, the first British watchmaker to earn a doctorate in horology, from Birmingham City University, is part of a new generation of British watchmakers. But she believes there are “no more than 30 watchmakers in the U.K. who are commercially capable of making a watch from scratch to a very high standard.”

Struthers Watchmakers, the company owned by Dr. Struthers and her husband, Craig, is based in Birmingham’s Jewelry Quarter, an area in the northwestern part of the city center that is home to about 100 businesses. It is not far from the Curzon Street Station where the proposed HS2 high-speed train, estimated for completion in 2026, would come into the city.

According to Dr. Struthers, heritage crafts businesses are being pushed out of historic buildings in the quarter to make way for luxury developments to serve an expected population boom once the train is operating. “Craft is seen as being cute and cuddly, very kitchen table,” she said. “And so it’s not taken as seriously as it should be, despite the money it makes for the U.K. economy. The Jewelry Quarter would be protected if we adopted Unesco.”

Dr. Struthers cited a 2017 report produced for Arts Council England by the Center for Economics and Business Research, which calculated that arts and culture businesses contributed 8.5 billion pounds ($11 billion) in gross value added to the British economy during 2015. (Gross value added is an economic term for the measure of goods and services produced by one segment of an economy.)

For comparison, the Premier League, the richest soccer league in the world, reported a £7.6 billion gross value added in 2016-2017. The center’s report also said that the arts and culture industry paid £5 in tax for every £1 of funding.

Ms. Lovett, however, said the report didn’t tell the whole story, noting that a 2012 analysis, sponsored by a government business department, showed the heritage craft industry alone accounted for more than 200,000 jobs and £4.4 billion in gross value added.

Mr. Forsey said he had hope for those in Britain and for other countries trying to pursue inclusion in the Unesco convention. In Switzerland, “There’s a good chance we’ll get watchmaking listed,” he said. “And that will give impetus to the U.K. and others.

“The measurement of time has been transforming humanity since the 14th century and enabled us to make huge progress” he added. “This isn’t about the super rich, it’s cultural, and we need to do everything we can to preserve and share it.”