Bodet
A village cabinetmaker's first church clock in 1868 led to a five-generation family firm that still looks after the clocks and bells of thousands of French churches.
A cabinetmaker's first church clock
Bodet's story starts with one commission. On 15 November 1868 the town council of Trémentines, a village near Cholet in western France, asked the local cabinetmaker Paul Bodet to build a clock for its church, according to the business newspaper Le Journal des Entreprises. The company counts 1868 as its founding year and describes its original purpose as installing tower clocks.
Paul Bodet went on to fit church clocks in the surrounding villages. In 1918 his son Emmanuel took over and, according to the company, expanded the business across western France.
Bells, electrification and factory clocks
Clock installation stopped from 1940 to 1944, during the Second World War. Afterward, Pierre Bodet, an engineer, relaunched the company with his brother, and tower clock sales grew quickly. Le Journal des Entreprises reports that he also began electrifying church bells, which until then had been rung by hand, and that the firm grew from one person to about 50 employees. From 1955 Bodet made its own clocks for schools and businesses.
The Banco de España's collection notes describe the company as a family-run firm that began with monumental and bell tower clocks before branching into other areas.
See also: the bell patterns tower clocks strike on OnlineClock.app.
Scoreboards, school clocks and master clocks
From the late 1960s Bodet moved well beyond church towers. The company dates its first scoreboards to 1968, and Le Journal des Entreprises says it launched its first electronic countdown sports timers in 1974. In 1975 Bodet introduced its first industrial clock, a flap or rotating-display model, and in 1978 its first electronic master clock, the Cristal Quartz, according to the Banco de España. Master clocks of this kind keep a whole building's slave clocks in step.
Bodet also became an early mover in computerized time-keeping for staff. Its first time-management software appeared in 1987, and that business, renamed Kelio in 2022, is now the group's largest, according to Le Journal des Entreprises. Subsidiaries opened in Spain, the UK, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands and, in 2023, Germany, the company says.
Exports began in the mid-1970s, and sports timing and display systems later became a major export line, with about half of those sales made outside France, according to Le Journal des Entreprises. Jean-Pierre Bodet, who joined in 1973, led the company from 1992 to 2016. The company says that under him the Trémentines factory was extended, the group went international and staff grew from about 300 to 700. It also branched into electronic fuel-price displays for service stations in 1984, according to the Banco de España.
Bodet today
Bodet remains a family business, now led by Pascal Bodet, who became chief executive in 2016 and represents the fifth generation. The group's head office is in Cholet and its factory is in Trémentines. In 2017 the bell and tower clock business became a separate company, Bodet Campanaire.
Le Journal des Entreprises reported in 2024 that the group had passed 1,000 employees and that it maintains clock and bell systems in about 15,000 of France's roughly 42,000 churches. The same report described it as the only company in France that repairs bells.
The bell and clock business is still growing in its home village. Le Journal des Entreprises reported that Bodet Campanaire had sales of 15.8 million euros and 120 employees in 2022, and that construction of a new site for it in Trémentines was due to start in autumn 2024, with the move planned for the second half of 2025.
Questions people ask
Is Bodet still in business?
Yes. As of 2026 Bodet is a family-owned French group based in Cholet, with its factory in Trémentines. Its Bodet Campanaire company still installs and maintains church clocks and bells.
What did Bodet first make?
Church tower clocks. The company traces its start to a clock Paul Bodet built for the church in Trémentines in 1868.
Does Bodet only make church clocks?
No. Since the late 1960s it has added sports scoreboards, industrial and master clocks, school and office clocks, and staff time-management software.