James Hoddell

  Notes:

Info from Mark . He owned Pool Farm but wife was dau of a watch maker and he sold the farm and moved to Coventry.

Presumably is;
1841 Census, Living as head aged 26 in St John's Parish, Coventry with wife, son and 2 others - Sarah Watkins (30) and Mary Ann Henry (15). Occupation; Watch Manufacturer.

1851 Census; Living as head aged 37 in Coventry St Michael Parish, Warwickshire with wife and son. Occupation; Watch manufacturer, employing 30 men - everyone else on street works with watches.

1861 Census; Living as head aged 48 at 2 Oxford St, Coventry St John Parish, Warwickshire with wife, son and servant. Occupation; Watch manufacturer employing 30 men and 7 boys.

London Gazette 3 June 1862; NOTICE is hereby given, that the Partnership subsisting between us, James Hoddell and Joseph Olorenshaw, of No. 15, Northampton-square, London, and of the city of Coventry, Watch Manufacturers, trading under the firm of James Hoddell, and Co., is this day dissolved by mutual consent. — Dated this 28th day of May, 1862. James Hoddell. Joseph Olorenshaw.

1871 Census; Living as head aged 58 at 2 Oxford Terrace, Coventry St Michael Parish with wife and servant. Occupation; Watch manufacturer employing 16 men and 6 boys.

1881 Census; Can't find.

Death record gives approx YoB as 1811, good enough match.

1891 Census; Can't find.

From a watch catalogue;
Ref:24505a HODDELL, James & Co. London. No 53037. Rare 'Patent Resilient' lever movement, by this influential Coventry and Clerkenwell based firm. Three-quarter plate keyless going-barrel movement, jewelled to the 3rd. Single-roller lever escapement with resilient banking applied to the tail of the lever. Signed enamel dial, blued-steel hands. 41 mm diameter.
Mortimer George Cole, English Patent No 56, January 1871. American Patent No 165793, taken out by the assignor, James Hoddell & Co, July 1875. In good clean condition apart from the smallest chip (less than 1 mm) at the edge of the dial and top balance pivot broken. Struggles to work dial down. £245.00

Elsewhere; James Hoddell and Co. were well known in this large watch and clock making location in London, Northampton Square.

Walter Ulreich quotes David Penney "There is very little written about the firm of James Hoddell & Co. I can tell you that they seem to have been in business from around 1855 to 1891, and that James Hoddell received a Patent for a twin barrel 8-day going watch in 1857. The firm was declared bankrupt in 1889, when they were based in Coventry."
also from Walter patents thus;
3049. James Hoddell of Northampton Square, Clerkenwell, Middlesex, and of Coventry, Warwickshire, for watches. Dated December 10, 1857. The Repertory of Patent Inventions … Enlarged Series, Vol. XXXI. January - June, 1858. London 1858, List of Patents, S. 507.

1827. Joseph Olorenshaw, of the firm of James Hoddell and Company, of Coventry, Manufacturers, for an invention for an improvement or improvements in spectacle frames. Chronological index of patents applied for and patents granted. London 1861, o.Pag.

Mortimer George Cole, English Patent No 56, January 1871. American Patent No 165793, taken out by the assignor, James Hoddell & Co, July 1875

James married Ann Watkins in 1834. (Ann Watkins was born in 1810 in Abergavenny and died in 1887 in Coventry, Warwicks.)