A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Historica 2. (Szeged, 1999)

TAKÁCS József: Szeged új toronyórái és mestereik (1806-1883)

JÓZSEF TAKÁCS THE TOWER-CLOCKS OF SZEGED AND THEIR MASTER CRAFTSMEN BETWEEN 1806 AND 1883 In 1698 there was only one clocktower in Szeged. By 1730 there were two and by the final third of the 18th century, these numbers increased to five. Among them was the oldest towerclock located in the tower above the gate of the castle. However, this was no longer in function by the 19th century. As their possessor and benefactor, the city was responsible for the operation of the tower-clocks of Szeged and for keeping them in running order. (They took over the responsibility of keeping the church tower-clock functional on request of the Serbian Orthodox church parish in 1840.) At the beginning and the end of the century, between 1806 and 1883, it was necessary to manufacture 6 new tower-clocks due to the poor condition of the old ones, the construction of the Rókus district church, and the building of the new city-hall. The city leadership during the Feudal Period had to face the hardship of finding craftsmen for the manufacture of new tower-clocks and to repair existing ones. This presented a problem, since there were no suitable persons among the craftsmen working within the bounds of the guilds. In 1806, József Hilbinger made a clock for city-hall, while József Rauschmann (the clockmaker for the court of Nádorispán) made a towerclock for the Rókus district church in 1833. Both master craftsmen were from Buda. There were no longer a shortage of local tower-clock manufacturers in the city when Lajos Bognár, a blacksmith and tower-clock maker moved to Szeged in 1830 from Deszk. He was followed by János Brauswetter who opened his workshop in 1847, just after returning from his studies in Switzerland and München. The tower-clocks of the city were operated and maintained by Bognár from 1834 and by Brauswetter from 1861. On request by city-hall, Lajos Bognár made a new tower-clock for the Uptown Church in 1841 and another for the Palánk district church in 1845. János Bauswetter constructed a new tower-clock for the Lowertown Church in 1861. In 1883, two clockmakers of Szeged (József Auer and Brauswetter), one clock-manufacturer from Budapest (János Henszler) and two clock manufacturers from Austria (Schauer and Stiehl) received offers for the creation of a tower-clock, with a transparent numberplate, for the new city hall. Since the Committee taking care of the contruction of city hall could not make an agreement with Brauswetter, the one with the most favourable offer, József D. Gruber, a clockmaker in Szeged, won the offer. The tower-clock transported by him (but which was not manufactured by him) was placed into the tower of city hall and it became operational on October 10th, 1883. Only two tower-clocks survived among the tower-clocks from the 19th century in Szeged: one is that of the Lowertown Church and the other one can not be identified with certainty.