Holtzapffel

The firm specialized in lathes for ornamental turning but also made a name for its high-quality edge and boring tools.

Moving to London from Alsace in 1792, Jean-Jacques worked initially in the workshop of the scientific-instrument maker Jesse Ramsden, anglicizing his name to John Jacob Holtzapffel.

In 1794 he set up a tool-making partnership in Long Acre with Francis Rousset, trading under the name of John Holtzapffel.

There is some evidence to suggest that Francis Ronalds assisted Charles in the early stages of preparing the treatise.

Typeset sections survive of an unfinished "Turner's Manual" that Ronalds wrote in 1837 and there is marked similarity in the two prefaces and elsewhere.