There were no signs that the son of a gun master Samuel Lange, born in February 18, 1815 in Dresden, is waiting the career of famous watchmaker. Shortly after his birth his mother left his father - "a man with a rough character." Another's family took on the education of Adolph Lange, raised him and arranged as an apprentice to a famous courtier watchmaker Johann Friedrich Christians Gyutkesu. Soon it became clear, it was a happy solution. Because after a while the master was struck by not only the excessive skill of his student, but also the extraordinary ambition of the young man, expressed in an effort to achieve more than enough for an ordinary watchmaker while in Dresden.
Learning watchmaking, Lange visited the newly opened Polytechnic School, and taught in the evenings English and French languages. From the very beginning he had planned that his knowledge he will expand only in the center of a highly watchmaking, which were at that time, France and England. Surrounded by brilliant court life, as well as in the search for more accurate timepieces for both military and civilian navigation, watchmaking art found there full state support.
In 1837, three years after his training in Dresden, a recommendation written by a master Gyukesom, Adolph Lange arrived in Paris at the service of the famous master of Joseph Thaddeus Vinnerlu chronometers. At one time he was considered as one of the best students of Abraham Louis Breguet.
At this time Adolf’s famous travel diary with sketches updated drawings of watch movements and components, as well as mathematical calculations reasonable proportions for the wheels and the winding mechanism. In addition, Adolph Lange was against the principle of ‘try and error ', lies in the chain, which at that time was the guiding principle of the watchmaker's craft, and makes it impossible to establish permanent and reproductive quality standards that would be standard. Given an order to reverse this trend its way, he returned to the creative workshop Gyutkesa back, married in 1842 to his daughter Amalia and became co-owner and the "engine" of watch-making company in the tests.
Adolph Lange was not only a brilliant watchmaker, educated and deeply religious man, but also socio-thinking person. Bitter poverty, spread at that time in the area of the Ore Mountains with an underdeveloped infrastructure, led him in 1844 to get to action. After repeated proposals and negotiations, he enters into a contract with the Royal Saxon Ministry of the Interior to create watchmaking in Glashütte. Under this agreement, the Lange had to train 15 students from Glashütte and to make them watchmakers in 3 years.
In addition to the further development of Lange’s own company in Glashütte, the infrastructure was improved significantly during the occupation by Adolf Lange post mayor for 18 years, there were many small specialized workshops for the production of precious stones, screws, wheels, spring drums, balances and arrows. Thanks to his support there were also opened factories for the production of watch cases. Hundreds of newly created well-paid jobs turned poverty into modest prosperity. The company "Lange", the amount of which is rarely more than 100 people, became the nucleus of the German precision watchmaking, which continues to develop inside and outside Glaskhhyutte.
After the sudden death of Adolph Lange, in December 3, 1875 at the age of 60 years, his sons and grandsons was rapidly growing business and Glashütte. Even today, experts highly appreciate the art of the mechanical measurement of time, according to the master clock accurate Adolf Lange is not only a prominent figure in the history of watchmaking, but also an important figure in the history of Saxony.
Seven years before his death, Adolf's son Richard Lange made a partner and renamed the factory in A.Lange & Sohne (“Lange and Sons”). In 1875, Emil, the youngest son of Adolph Lange, joined the family business and brought Lange and Sohne watches to the highest degree of technical and aesthetic perfection, creating a worldwide reputation as A. Lange & Sohne, preserved to this day. Adolph Lange managed to establish industrial production of expensive precision watches in Glashütte, and under the direction of Emil Lange firm produced masterpieces. In recognition of his contributions have become national and international awards.