Joseph White is probably one of the best known of the ‘Earlsdon Manufacturers’. He was born in Foleshill in 1835, son of a weaver, and was indentured to Chapelfields watchmaker Nathaniel Hill from the age of fourteen. His apprenticeship lasted seven years, during which he worked a twelve-hour day, six days a week. In 1860, two years after his apprenticeship ended, Joseph married, moved to a small house in Mount Street, Chapelfields, and started his own business.
His watchmaking business prospered and after a series of house moves, each one upwards, he eventually bought Earlsdon House together with a row of workers’ cottages — all this at the age of thirty-two. The British watchmaking industry was now nearing its peak, and by the 1870s Coventry was producing two-thirds of all timepieces made in Britain. White specialised in the higher quality sector of the market, striving always to meet the most exacting demands. His company regularly entered watches and chronometers for the rigorous timekeeping trials organised by the Greenwich Royal Observatory and the Admiralty, and consistently featured high in the results. In 1911, a White watch was placed first in Admiralty trials.
The highest quality watches made by White incorporated the famous tourbillon device developed by Breguet, designed to compensate for variations in timekeeping as a watch changes position. But the British industry was coming under increasing competition from abroad, and the USA in particular was automating production. White continued to produce the highest quality watches while also diversifying — firstly by taking an interest in Coventry Machinists Works (later Swift Cycles), and then by buying and developing land in Earlsdon for upmarket housing.
White had twelve children. In 1899, one of his sons, Alfred James White, went into partnership with Peter August Poppe to found White & Poppe, an engine manufacturer that at its peak was producing petrol engines for a number of world-famous car makers. After World War One, White & Poppe was bought by Dennis Brothers of Guildford, and in 1926 Harry Harley (later Sir Harry) bought Joseph White & Son, eventually discontinuing watch manufacture and converting Earlsdon House into the headquarters of Coventry Gauge & Tool Ltd.
Joseph died in Somerset but his grave is in London Road Cemetery. His business, Joseph White & Son, continued in Earlsdon Street into the 1930s as watch and chronometer makers.