Julien LeRoy, Parisian court clockmaker, 1699

Julien Le Roy (* 1686 in Tours ; † 1759 in Paris ) was a French watchmaker .

At the age of thirteen, Le Roy built his first clock . In the same year (1699), he moved to Paris to apprentice. In 1713, he earned his master craftsman's title , and in the following years, he became a juré of the Parisian Clockmakers' Guild . Le Roy then became director of the Société des Arts de Genève , and in 1739, he was appointed Court Clockmaker ( Horloger Ordinaire du Roi ) under Louis XV . Le Roy ran his workshop on the Rue de Harlay on the Île de la Cité in Paris until his death.

Examples of his watches can be found in various museums around the world, e.g., in the Louvre and the Victoria and Albert Museum .

His son Pierre Le Roy continued the workshop, invented the adjustable balance screws on the balance wheel , and also became a royal court watchmaker. Another son, Julien-David Le Roy , was a Neoclassical architect and archaeologist, as well as the author of Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grèce (1758), Histoire de la disposition et des formes que les chrétiens ont données à leurs temples (1764), and La Marine des anciens peuples expliquées, etc. (1777). The two other sons were Jean-Baptiste (from 1751 state geometer of the Paris Academy ) and Charles Le Roy (physician), both of whom wrote articles for the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers by Denis Diderot and Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert .