Geoff Butler has tinkered with watches and clocks since he was 15, finding enjoyment in fine-tuning the intricate parts which help people make sense of time.
Now 62, the watchmaker and his team played a large role in restoring the Moorhouse Ave railway station clock, frozen in time after the September 2010 earthquake.
The clock was installed at Riverside Market when it opened in 2019 and remains a central feature of the food precinct.
“It was nice to see the parts reused and placed in an iconic place in town,” Butler said.
The clock was completely dismantled, serviced and rebuilt, which required high level watchmaking skills.
“Especially after the earthquakes, I think it became really important. It’ll be great to keep these old timepieces going as long as possible, until parts run out or they can’t be repaired.”
Butler was last month recognised for his nearly 50 years of service to watchmaking with a trade certified master tradesperson certificate from the Jewellery Industry Registration Board.
He and wife Michelle own Ilam Watchmakers, servicing and repairing anything from old family heirlooms to heritage building clocks.
Some clocks and watches can take up to 10 hours to service.
“Some of the clocks we repair can be 100, 200 years old. There’s a lot of sentimental value in them for families. They want help to preserve them so they can give them to the next generation,” Butler said.
Watchmakers in modern times mostly repair and restore, rather than create, as most clocks and watches are now made in factories.
The artform dates back to the 14th century in Europe with the first mechanical clocks, mostly mounted on churches.
Clocks and watches became more accurate from the 17th century onwards after the invention of the pendulum clock by Dutch polymath Christiaan Huygens in 1656.
Today, Butler says the number of watchmakers in New Zealand has dwindled from about 650 over the past four decades to about 100 today.
“It is a bit of a shame to see. Even those who are left are getting older and retiring.”
In the future, the Butlers expect their industry to keep shrinking with fewer watchmakers, but demand for services to stay the same.
“There will be longer wait times, but people are happy to wait,” Michelle Butler said.
One of the biggest changes in watchmaking has been the ever-increasing range of watches to repair.
“A lot of battery watches come through but there’s still a lot of mechanical, old antique watches that we do. Every watch is different. There’s many more parts which are getting harder to source and you need the right kinds of expertise to repair those parts,” Butler said.
Although his business has weathered the storm of technological changes, Butler has embraced repairing modern watches and clocks.
“When Apple watches became a thing, we were a little concerned, but no it didn’t end up affecting us.”
“It’s four years, 8000 hours. It’s not a short process for each apprentice,” Michelle said.
Since opening, Ilam Watchmakers has grown to 17 staff, with five fully-qualified watchmakers working alongside Butler.
The business services clocks sent in to the shop, but Butler often does home visits to service large grandfather clocks.
“I think it’s surprising. It’s amazing. We never dreamed we would get this far,” Michelle said.
A tip for maintaining clocks Butler has learned over the years is to regularly oil the mechanical parts.
To keep nice, old clocks in good condition, they need to be serviced regularly to stop wear and tear.
“If parts have been hard to source and we’ve had to modify something to fit it, you see the end result of it working, there’s huge satisfaction,” Butler said.
