Andreas Heege, Alfred Spycher, Jonathan Frey, 2025
No comprehensive research has been published so far on the potters from the city of Biel/Bienne. The historical encyclopaedia of the city lists potters named Bitto, Laubscher, Schaltenbrand, Schöni, Wannemacher and Witz (cf. Bourquin/Bourquin 1999, keyword “Hafner” [potters]).
In the early modern era, potters belonged to a guild known as “Zunft zum Wald”. Its 1743 guild laws have survived (Schwab 1921, 18-20; see also Boschetti-Maradi 2006, 186-187).
Thanks to two marriages linking the family of the Bernese stove fitter Wilhelm Emanuel Dittlinger (1718-1799) with the Laubscher potters from Biel/Bienne, it has now been possible to reconstruct their family tree, which is being made available here.
Family tree of the Laubscher potters, Biel/Bienne (PDF)
Laubscher Biel_family tree (Excel worksheet)
The Laubschers became citizens of Biel/Bienne in 1483. The family had two generations of potters.
Jakob Samuel Laubscher (1676-1733)
In the 1690s, Jakob Samuel Laubscher served his apprenticeship with Master Hans Heinrich Hess in Bern (Boschetti-Maradi 2006, 180). In 1702, his presence was recorded in Büren a. d. Aare and in Biel/Bienne. On 9th April 1704, he caused the tilery in Biel to be destroyed by fire and he was banned from the city for two years. He went to Vevey (then in the Canton of Bern, now in the Canton of Vaud), where he met and married Judith Calandre/Calander. Their daughter Anna Maria was christened on 12th October 1707. She would later marry the potter Wilhelm Emanuel Dittlinger from Bern. Another daughter, Anna-Jeanne-Madelaine, was born in 1710, and his first son and later potter Samuel Laubscher (1711/1712 – ?) was probably also born in Vevey. In 1712 or perhaps a little earlier, the family moved back to Biel/Bienne, where the remaining children were born. In 1712, Jakob Samuel Laubscher’s wife was expelled from the city of Biel/Bienne, though we have not been able to ascertain why. Over the following years the records contain various reports on neighbourhood disputes. The home of a potter on Klostergasse lane in Biel is mentioned in 1726 in the context of a loan from the “Zunft zum Wald” guild (archival records on Jakob Samuel Laubscher).
Samuel Laubscher (1711/1712 – ?)
Samuel Laubscher was probably born in Vevey, but moved with his parents to Biel/Bienne, where he grew up. Thanks to a report on a dispute with the journeyman potter Michel Blanck in 1730, we know that Samuel worked as a journeyman for a Widow Fruting in Bern at that time (this was probably Elisabeth Reinli, ?-1743, the widow of Jakob Fruting, 1672-1728, see the family tree of the Fruting potters from Bern). The year his father died, Samuel was living in Biel, where he and his mother jointly applied for a guild loan of 20 Kronen, putting up the family home as collateral security. He married Maria Elisabeth Dittlinger, the sister of the Bernese potter, Wilhelm Emanuel Dittlinger (1718-1799, on his personal story see Boschetti-Maradi 2006, 180) probably in 1740. The same year, he was accused by the Bernese master potters Fruting and Herrmann, acting as representatives for the potters of Bern, of helping his brother-in-law Wilhelm Dittlinger to produce a masterpiece (a “Gupfenofen” = a tiled stove with a Ofenturm/tower-stove). The accusation, however, could not be substantiated and the case against Dittlinger was dismissed. In early 1741, Samuel applied for another loan of 20 Kronen, again putting up the house at Klostergasse, which he had inherited in 1733, as security. Because of a marital dispute, Samuel’s wife Maria Elisabeth Dittlinger went to live in Bern for a time in 1742, where she gave birth to their first son Wilhelm Samuel. Sadly, he drowned in the River Schüss in 1751. When their daughter Maria Margreth was born in Biel in 1744, the Bernese potter Johann Rudolf Fruting acted as godfather. She died at the age of 10 in 1754 “im Kloster” [at Klostergasse lane]. Samuel defaulted on his mortgage repayments between the years 1741 and 1744 and bankruptcy proceedings were initiated against him in early 1746. Among the assets was a potter’s kiln on the road outside the Nidau gate, which was bought by shoemaker David Schöni from Biel/Bienne for 30 Kronen so that his son, the potter Ludwig Schöni, could use it. In 1773, he eventually sold the “kiln shed and equipment” (including the kiln itself) to Ludwig.
In 1758, Samuel Laubscher and Maria Elisabeth had another son, Emanuel Daniel, born in Bern. He only lived for two years. Neither Samuel’s or his wife’s date and place of death are known. (archival records on Samuel Laubscher).
As far as we know, none of the products made by either Jakob Samuel or Samuel Laubscher have survived.
Translation Sandy Haemmerle
References:
Boschetti-Maradi 2006
Adriano Boschetti-Maradi, Gefässkeramik und Hafnerei in der Frühen Neuzeit im Kanton Bern (Schriften des Bernischen Historischen Museums 8), Bern 2006.
Bourquin/Bourquin 1999
Werner Bourquin/Marcus Bourquin, Biel, Stadtgeschichtliches Lexikon, von der Römerzeit bis Ende der 1930er Jahre, Büro Cortesi (Hrsg.), Biel 1999.
Schwab 1921
Fernand Schwab, Beitrag zur Geschichte der bernischen Geschirrindustrie (Schweizer Industrie- und Handelsstudien 7), Weinfelden/Konstanz 1921.
