In the nineteenth century, the small towns and villages of Germany’s Black Forest region sent skilled craftsmen across the world. Among them were members of the Zimber family, who established long-running clock and jewellery businesses in New Ross, County Wexford, and Bodmin in Cornwall. Their story reflects a broader history of migration, industrial change, and family enterprise that connected rural Germany with provincial Ireland and Britain during the age of industrialisation.
The history of the Zimber family can be understood not simply as a story of emigration, but as part of the wider transformation of the Black Forest clock industry itself. As traditional rural clockmaking came under pressure from industrialisation during the nineteenth century, many families adapted by creating international trading and retail networks that stretched far beyond Germany.
The Black Forest and the Origins of Clockmaking
The Black Forest (Schwarzwald), in southwestern Germany, became one of Europe’s great clockmaking regions from the eighteenth century onward. Unlike the large urban workshops of England or France, Black Forest production was overwhelmingly rural and domestic.
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| A clock-making workshop |
- winters were long,
- agricultural income was limited,
- and families needed supplementary work during the colder months.
Clockmaking evolved as a decentralised “cottage industry.” Rather than large factories, production was spread across households:
- one family carved wooden plates,
- another produced gears,
- another painted dials,
- while itinerant traders carried clocks across Europe for sale.
A traditional clock peddlar
This social structure created a highly cooperative local economy. Entire villages became dependent on clockmaking, and specialist skills were passed down through generations. The work was organised through networks of kinship, apprenticeship, and local merchants rather than industrial corporations.
Early Black Forest clocks were typically:
- wooden-framed,
- weight-driven,
- and relatively inexpensive compared with English or French clocks.
By the early nineteenth century, the region was exporting enormous numbers of clocks internationally.
The Crisis of the 1870s
By the mid-nineteenth century, however, the traditional Black Forest system was under increasing pressure.
Industrialisation transformed clock production:
- factory-made brass movements replaced handmade wooden mechanisms,
- mechanised manufacturing reduced prices dramatically,
- and large firms in Germany, America, and France outcompeted small rural workshops.
The old cottage system struggled to survive.
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| Zimberhausle and clock workshop |
The 1870s were especially difficult:
- population growth increased pressure on already poor rural communities,
- profits collapsed,
- and many craftsmen fell into debt.
German unification in 1871 accelerated industrial concentration in urban centres, while remote artisanal regions like the Black Forest were left economically vulnerable.
For many clockmaking families, emigration became both an economic necessity and a business opportunity.
Migration Without Breaking Family Ties
Importantly, emigrants from the Black Forest rarely severed contact with home. Instead, many families created international trading networks.
A common pattern developed:
- some relatives remained in Germany to maintain supplier relationships and production,
- while others emigrated to establish retail and repair businesses abroad.
The Zimber family appears to have followed exactly this model.
Members of the family came from the Black Forest clockmaking tradition before establishing themselves in Ireland and Cornwall during the nineteenth century. Their businesses demonstrate how emigrant craftsmen often combined technical expertise with family-based commercial networks that stretched across borders.
The Zimbers were not unique in bringing Black Forest clockmaking traditions to Ireland. During the nineteenth century, several German clockmaking and jewellery families established businesses in Irish towns and cities, forming part of a small but significant network of emigrant craftsmen. For example the Dold family settled in Kilrush, County Clare, the Faller family became established in Galway, and the Hartmann family operated in Limerick. Like the Zimbers, these families combined clock and watch repair with jewellery retailing, importing German-made clocks while embedding themselves deeply within local commercial life. Their presence illustrates how Irish provincial towns became connected to continental European manufacturing networks through migration, trade, and family enterprise.
The Zimbers in New Ross
Aaron Zimber, my great-great-grandfather, and his brother Richard settled in New Ross, County Wexford, where they established a clock and jewellery business around 1870. The business continued trading until the 1930s, latterly being run by his daughter, Albertina and her husband, John Holmes. The business was sold to Brooks Jewellers, who are still trading in the Charles Street premises today.
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| Zimber Bros, Quay, New Ross |
At the time, New Ross was still an important commercial port town with strong links to Britain and overseas trade. Nineteenth-century New Ross was closely connected to Liverpool and Bristol through shipping and mercantile networks.
The timing of the Zimber arrival was significant. During the 1870s and 1880s:
- Ireland imported large quantities of German-made clocks,
- Black Forest products dominated the affordable domestic market,
- and German-trained clockmakers enjoyed a reputation for technical skill and reliability.
The New Ross shop likely sold:
- Black Forest wall clocks,
- spring-driven domestic clocks,
- watches and jewellery,
- and later factory-made German clocks from major manufacturers.
Many imported clocks carried only the retailer’s name rather than the original manufacturer’s mark. As a result, clocks sold by the Zimbers may have appeared entirely local while containing German-made movements inside.
Like many emigrant craftsmen, the family probably maintained regular correspondence with relatives who remained in Germany. Such networks helped retailers abroad:
- source stock,
- monitor changing fashions,
- and obtain credit or supply connections.
The Bodmin Branch
Karl Friedrich Zimber, another brother, established a business in Bodmin, Cornwall. Remarkably, this shop survived in family hands until the 1970s.
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| Charles Zimber's shop in Bodmin |
Its early decades likely resembled the New Ross operation:
- importing German clocks,
- repairing watches and timepieces,
- and serving a local market with specialist technical skills.
Cornwall’s maritime connections made imported continental goods readily available through Bristol and London wholesalers.
The longevity of the Bodmin business shows how successfully the family adapted across generations. By the twentieth century, the shop would almost certainly have diversified:
- selling British-made clocks and watches,
- expanding into jewellery,
- and relying increasingly on repair work rather than imported Black Forest stock alone.
Surviving through two world wars and into the late twentieth century required considerable flexibility, especially given the disruption to German imports during and after World War I.
Family Networks and the Black Forest Tradition
The Zimber story illustrates how Black Forest clockmaking families adapted to industrialisation not simply by abandoning their trade, but by internationalising it.
The traditional Black Forest industry had always depended upon networks:
- networks of labour,
- kinship,
- apprenticeship,
- and trade.
Migration extended those same networks internationally.
A brother in Germany might still source movements or maintain supplier relationships while brothers abroad operated retail businesses in Ireland or Britain. In effect, these families became informal international trading firms spanning multiple countries.
This combination of migration and continuing family cooperation helped many artisan families survive the collapse of the old cottage industry.
A Local Story Within a European Transformation
The history of the Zimber family is more than a genealogy of shopkeepers and clockmakers. It is part of a much larger European story.
Their journey reflects:
- the decline of rural artisanal economies,
- the rise of industrial mass production,
- the expansion of international migration,
- and the resilience of family enterprise during a period of immense economic change.
From isolated villages in the Black Forest to the commercial streets of New Ross and Bodmin, the Zimbers carried with them not only technical skills but an entire cultural tradition of craftsmanship and family cooperation.
Today, surviving clocks, shop signs, business records, and family memories preserve traces of that world — a world in which a Black Forest cottage industry became part of the commercial life of Ireland and Cornwall for more than a century.
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| My Zimber Bros pocket watch |
