Born François Léon Forestier in Geneva, Switzerland on 9 June 1874, Léon was the son of Antoine Forestier, a Commission Agent, and Marie Julie Tirefort. He attended the famous College of Horology where he was the outstanding student of his year, completing his course with the highest honours.
He was then persuaded to travel to Coventry to work for Rotherham’s. While there he met his future wife, and in January 1898 married Elizabeth Smith at St Peter’s Church. After a series of addresses — Craven Street, Gloucester Street, and Albany Road — he settled at Earlsdon Avenue South in a house he named ‘Genève’.
While at Rotherham’s he built up his own business on the side, finally leaving in 1907 to work entirely on his own account. His 1907 advertisement in The Horologist shows he was capable of very highly specialised work. At one point he set a record at the Kew Observatory for the timekeeping accuracy of one of his watches, and during the 1914–18 war he made chronometers for the Admiralty.
Unfortunately he was too meticulous a craftsman for commercial success. Using only materials of the very highest quality, and taking as long as was necessary to bring his work to the peak of perfection, he found great difficulty in earning a good living as work became increasingly scarce. He opened a tiny sweet shop in the Working Men’s Club building as a sideline, staffed by his very pretty wife, from 1911 until 1914. Thereafter he worked on repairs to an ever-decreasing degree until about 1926, when he moved to Weymouth. He remarried in 1936 and died in Weymouth in 1951.