FRANCISZEK CZAPEK – Polish watchmaker of Czech origin

František Czapek (Czech: František Čapek, French: François Czapek) was a watchmaker and partner of Antoni Norbert Patek at Patek, Czapek & Co. Czapek was a naturalized Pole of Czech descent. He was born on April 4, 1811 in Semonice (now part of Jaroměř) in the Czech Republic. He was the son of Jan Czapek and Katharina Walaschek. František took part in the November Uprising as a soldier in the National Guard in Warsaw. On July 1, 1832, he arrived in Geneva, where he changed his name to François Czapek. Shortly thereafter, he founded Czapek & Moreau with a certain Moreau of Versoix. On October 22, 1836, he married Marie Gevril de Carouge, daughter of watchmaker Jonas Pierre François Gevril de Carouge (1777-1854). On May 1, 1839, together with businessman and nobleman Anthony Norbert Patek and a third business partner, presumably Mr. Moreau, he founded the Patek, Czapek & Co. watch factory in Geneva. Paragraph 5 of the agreement stipulated that Czapek would receive 100 francs per month, with the profit to be divided equally among the three shareholders. It appears that for the first fourteen months of the company’s existence, Patek and Czapek worked alone, perhaps assisted by one or two employees. They bought raw mechanisms, called “blanks,” and watch envelopes from specialized manufacturers. Czapek was the finisher, meaning he was responsible for the finishing, assembly, casing and final inspection. As of July 1840, the company probably already employed half a dozen workers. Several were Poles: Lilpop from Warsaw, Henryk Majewski from Lviv; Siedlecki and Friedlein from Krakow. About 200 watches were produced annually. Unfortunately, due to differences in business views, the cooperation between Czapek and Patek ended. Franciszek Czapek founded his own company in 1845 under the name Czapek & Cie with his partner Juliusz Gruzewski (1808-1865), a hero of the November Uprising (1830), who remained politically active after the uprising and in 1863 became the official representative of the Polish National Government in Switzerland and was responsible for the purchase and transport of arms to Poland. Both men were Protestants, a rarity in the majority Catholic Polish émigré community in Switzerland. Many Polish customers remained loyal to Czapek’s business, all who did not believe that after Frenchman Jean-Adrien Philippe came to Patek & Co. that it would continue to be the true Polish national manufactory that Czapek and Patek had aspired to be when they worked together. Around 1854, Czapek set up store in Warsaw, and in 1860 a branch on Place Vendôme in Paris. Julius Gruzewski’s friendly relations with Napoleon III (1808-1873), Emperor of France, probably made Czapek’s company a supplier of watches to the imperial court. Unfortunately, after that we have a big hole in history, the company was liquidated for unknown reasons around 1869, and Franciszek Czapek died in poverty with an unknown date of death, according to the “Great Illustrated Encyclopedia of Poland.”

Franciszek Czapek was the author of the first ever Polish book on watchmaking: “Słów kilku o Zegarmistrzowstwie ku użyteczności zegarmistrzów i publiczności,” published in Leipzig in 1850.