From the house
Apprenticeships for 2027
· Seattle
The house will take between eight and twelve apprentices in 2027, in seven trades: ocularist, feather-setter, movement maker, hand-maker, engraver, enameler and cabinetmaker. Each will spend four years at the bench beside a maker and will be paid from the first day.
There will be no apprentice tuners this year while the license for the Penfield Mk IV is suspended. The tuners at the Penfield Works remain at work, retuning instruments that keepers send in, and the Master of the Atelier has asked us to say that the pause is a pause and not a decision.
No qualifications are required. The house asks applicants to send a letter and something they have made. Recent intakes have included a former surgical nurse, a retired locksmith and a seventeen-year-old who sent a working model of the Copyist made from a shoebox. All three are at the bench today.
Applications close on 15 January 2027. About sixty applicants will be invited to spend a day at the Atelier in February, and every applicant will receive a letter.