14 November 1765

30 September 1834

Hirtzfelden ((Haut Rhin)

Paris

Late 18th century/early 19th century

The son of a cultivator, Jecker was educated in his village school before, in 1784 being apprenticed to a mechanician in Besançon probably thanks to the fact that two of his uncles, both musicians, lived in that city. In 1786 he went to London where he worked for five years with, among others, Ramsden. He returned to France in 1792. In 1794 he presented to the Bureau de Consulatation des Arts his straight-line and circle dividing engines receiving a maximum award of 3000 livres Le 14 Messidor an II (2 July 1794). Conscripted into the army, Jecker attained the rank of Captain in the engineering corps. In 1796 he obtained a contract from the Bureau des Poids et Mesures for the supply of standard metres. With two of his four brothers, Gervais and Protais, c. 1800 he set up a precision instrument manufactory where some 40 workmen were employed and where he was aided by Michel (qv ). Among his wide range of products were pocket coin balances of the kind developed by Ramsden. In 1801 he was awarded a Medal of Honour in the Exposition des Produits de l'Industrie Française and a silver medal in the first class in the subsequent exhibition in 1806. Numerous awards followed in later exhibtions. By 1812 he had developed machines to cut parallel face glasses, achromatic lenses and a variety of optical instruments. A but of him surmounts his tome in the Cimetière Père Lachaise (1).

1. http://www.appl-lachaise.net/appl/article.php3?id_article=1575

Description des pèse-monnoies ou balances de Jecker, n.p.; n.d. [Paris c. 1800]. Prospectus.

Manière de rectifier le cercle de réflexion et le sextant avec les changements opérés, depuis la description du premier par M. le Chevalier Borda, Paris 1820.

20 or 42 rue des Marmousets, Paris (1792-1801
10, rue des Douze Portes,Paris (1803-1810)
32, rue de Bondi, Paris
18, rue de Bondy, Paris (Alm Com 1839, 693).

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