The Brillie Company was founded in 1897 by Lucien Brillié and Charles Vigreux in Levallois-Perret near Paris. Both their names appear on the company's electric clock patents. Vigreux's name appears on early table regulator dials but is rare on others.
The company developed the Fery electric clock (Swiss patent Horloge électrique Brevet no. 24916 of 1901) into a commercial product and rose to become the pre-eminent French electrical timekeeping company, providing clocks to the Paris Observatory and French national time service.
Designs were extremely numerous. Early clocks made between 1898 and about 1906 always had the compensated pendulum, after this period they were only seen on higher quality clocks such as the half second table regulator and 1 second observatory regulator, the latter also available with a non compensated pendulum as often used by railways. The Vigreux-Brillie badge continued to be used after the take over by Magneta but was eventually replaced by Brillie or Brillie Freres. Products included time distribution systems, bell ringers and carillons, time recorders, turret clocks, time stamps, chronographs and clocks, including ships clocks and observatory regulators.
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