TALK TODAY : 11 AUG 1914, The Father of the Chronograph Passes Away

      “If you’re into Breitling, you must play with Chronographs.” This is a catchy phrase often heard among fellow watch enthusiasts. These convictions were not built on awards or short-lived stories that brought fame, but rather from the love of a young German boy from the Breitling family—a fortune seeker in Switzerland who fell for timing mechanisms and decided to dedicate his whole life to them.

During the dawn of the Second Industrial Revolution, when electricity was dramatically transforming industrial manufacturing systems—including the arrival of the aviation age—the hustle and bustle of people became a catalyst for timing tools to be developed to the highest possible quality. At 24 years old, filled with the inspiration to create the world's best chronographs, Léon Breitling established a small watch manufacturing workshop in Saint-Imier in the Bernese Jura of Switzerland. His love and effort yielded quick results, as expected. Léon's development of timing mechanisms adapted scales for various types of work so effectively that they became widely recognized.

Breitling’s Chronographs gained fame and were developed in conjunction with the racing industry, the general industrial sector, and the medical field. Breitling produced watches designed with timing scales precise to 1/5th of a second, a level of precision used for pulse measurement in medicine. By the early 20th century, Breitling had finally become a leader in timing innovation.

Léon Breitling passed away on August 11, 1914, just one year before the world’s first wristwatch chronograph was introduced to the public. Nevertheless, the love for these mechanisms that young Léon Breitling felt from the very first day he touched a chronograph has been passed down to subsequent generations to this day.

Sources:
- https://www.breitling.com
- https://www.pennluxury.com/bios/leon-breitling/
- http://www.shavoltron.moonfruit.com