Peter Henlein, Nuremberg, inventor of the pocket watch, Nuremberg Egg

Peter Henlein (* around 1479 or around 1485 born in Nuremberg ; died August 1542 there ) was a German master locksmith who also worked as a watchmaker . He is credited in ^Germany with inventing the wearable watch .

Little is known for certain about the life of Peter Henlein ^{[ 7 ] ,} who came from a Nuremberg family. His father was the coppersmith Peter I. Henlein, who was married to Barbara Henlein and was a son of the coppersmith and gunsmith Eberhard Heyllein († 1468). Until about 1481, Peter I. Henlein and his family owned a property at what is now Tucherstraße 41.

Around 1495, Peter Henlein was an apprentice locksmith. After a young Nuremberg master locksmith was killed in a brawl on September 8, 1504, Henlein, as a participant in the fight, fled to the asylum of the Franciscan monastery (on the site of today's HypoVereinsbank at Lorenzer Platz) and was granted sanctuary there. About two months later, he was granted safe conduct. A four-year trial ensued, in which Henlein was sentenced to pay a fine to the victim's children. On November 16, 1509, the journeyman locksmith Henlein became a master locksmith in Nuremberg.

Peter Henlein had a brother named Hermann, who was executed in Augsburg in 1523 for the murder of an eight-year-old girl in Nuremberg's main market square (near the present-day Prantl Stone) in 1516. (Peter Henlein himself is said to have committed a crime while trying to help his brother in the trial. He also ran afoul of the law in 1529 for a brawl and again in 1530.) After the death of his first wife, Kunigunde, Peter Henlein married Margarethe (d. 1540) around 1520/1521. After Margarethe's death, he married for the third time, wed Walburga Schreyer on October 12, 1540.

Henlein's neighbor, the coppersmith and bronze caster Peter Vischer the Elder, owned three houses in Katharinengraben. Henlein, the "goldsmith of St. Catherine's Ditch," accordingly lived around 1522 as the owner of a mortgaged house, presumably in what is now Peter-Vischer-Straße (No. 19 or 21). Henlein died at about 60 years of age in the summer of 1542 (between May 31 and September 20, according to the St. Sebald church's death register).

Before November 1511, Henlein was already producing small iron clocks "that could be taken anywhere" . In 1512, Peter Henlein was mentioned by the humanist Johannes Cochlaeus in his "Brief Description of Germany" ( Brevis Germaniae descriptio ) as a manufacturer of small, portable clocks; these were said to run for 40 hours, "even when carried in a pocket in the folds of a garment." According to Cochlaeus's passage, Henlein was considered the first in Germany to create wearable clocks.

Henlein's portable clocks may have been in the shape of a pomander , which was very popular around 1500. They may also have been can-shaped. ^{[ 10 ]} The first documented pomander clock by Henlein dates to around 1524 (according to the Nuremberg city records, he received 15 fl. (guilders) on January 11, 1524, for a "gilded pomander for all things with a clock" ). It is suspected that some of his portable clocks also had a striking mechanism. This is based on a passage in Cochlaeus's geography book published in 1512 (assuming the Latin 'pulsant' is to be translated as 'to strike' and not 'to tick' ). These clocks should not be confused with the Nuremberg eggs , a type of clock that only emerged after Henlein's death. In any case, the term is a corruption of the then-common term for a small clock.

A can-shaped clock in the British Museum in London can most likely be attributed to him. A clock in a pomander case, rediscovered in 1987 and allegedly dated 1505 (Roman numeral MDV ), which has been presented variously on the internet, is also associated with Henlein due to the monogram PHN . ^{[ 12 ] [ 13 ] [ 14 ]}

While products made by his hand are difficult to trace, Peter Henlein is a historical figure. He also manufactured clocks and achieved considerable renown and wealth. However, Henlein is not documented as a renowned clockmaker and clock appraiser before 1520. Among his customers were princes such as Albrecht of Brandenburg (end of 1529) and the Mecklenburg-Schwerin ducal court in Schwerin , which Henlein supplied with small clocks between 1526 and 1542. Nuremberg city records mention Henlein more frequently as a contractor and recipient of payments from the 1520s onwards. For a "selbgeend arologium" (a self-made clock) fitted with a case silver-gilt by a person named Richel, Henlein received payment in January 1525 (it was probably a drum or box clock).

Around 1535, Henlein repaired the "Hörlein" (a small clock used to record working hours) in the chancellery of the Nuremberg town hall . In the second half of 1541, Henlein received the commission to manufacture and install a large tower clock for the Nuremberg estate of Lichtenau near Ansbach .

Henlein was active as a clock expert around the end of 1541, when he was consulted about the church tower clock in Hersbruck for its reconstruction as part of a church tower heightening project.

For watchmaking in German-speaking countries, Peter Henlein (called the "inventor of the pocket watch" ^{[ 17 ] [ 18 ]} ) has been considered a historical figure of national importance for centuries, particularly ^{[ 19 ]} during the Nazi era . However, the romanticized feature film *The Immortal Heart * by Veit Harlan from 1939 contributed significantly to this confusion. In contrast, Henlein's name is still rarely found in horological literature from non-German-speaking countries.

In 1979/1985, the question of which of Henlein's two estimated birth years should be celebrated as an anniversary sparked a heated debate between art historians at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg and the German watchmaking community. In the course of this controversy, Jürgen Abeler published the first comprehensive and detailed documentation of Peter Henlein's life and work, entitled * In Sachen Peter Henlein* (On the Subject of Peter Henlein), which effectively summarizes the state of knowledge at that time. In the 1980s, evidence was also found of contacts between a Mecklenburg patron and Henlein. ^{[ 20 ]} An exhibition at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg in 2014/2015 explored the questions surrounding Peter Henlein and early pocket watches – the accompanying volume provides the best and most thorough summary of the current state of knowledge about his life and work. As a result of the exhibition, two letters by Peter Henlein were discovered in Schwerin, one of them autograph . In 2016, his likely residence and workshop in Nuremberg was identified.

In the Walhalla, the memorial plaque with "P. Henlein inventor of pocket watches †MDXLII" completes the series of 64 memorial plaques that were installed in the opening year 1842, also the 300th year of his death, for those persons for whom no portrait models were available for the production of busts.

In 1903, a Peter Henlein stone was unveiled in front of the German Watchmaking School in Glashütte .

The Peter Henlein Fountain, featuring a bronze statue of the watchmaker, was erected as a monument in 1905, based on a design by sculptor Max Meißner (cast at the Lenz art foundry in Nuremberg). The fountain is located in Hefnersplatz in Nuremberg's Lorenzer Old Town.

In 1995, the Peter Henlein Realschule in Nuremberg was named after the watchmaker.

Numerous streets bear his name; e.g. in Nuremberg, Amberg , Augsburg , Bad Kissingen , Bremen , Cuxhaven , Forchheim , Künzell , Munich , Regensburg , Schönwald in the Black Forest , Goslar and Wesseling on the Rhine .