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Concept
Bévilard
Summary
Bévilard is a municipality in the Jura bernois administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is located in the French-speaking Bernese Jura (Jura Bernois). On 1 January 2015 the former municipalities of Bévilard, Malleray and Pontenet merged to form the new municipality of Valbirse.
Bévilard is first mentioned in 1182 as Bevilar. In German it was known as Bewiler though this is not used currently.
Very little is known about the early history of the village. During the 13th and 14th centuries the noble Bévilard family appear in a few records. Throughout much of its existence, it was owned by the Provost of Moutier-Grandval Abbey. After the 1797 French victory and the Treaty of Campo Formio, Bévilard became part of the French Département of Haut-Rhin. After Napoleon's defeat and the Congress of Vienna, Bévilard was assigned to the Canton of Bern in 1815.
The village parish church of Saint-Georges was first mentioned in 1263. The current church building is from 1716. In 1531 the Protestant Reformation entered the village and the new faith was adopted. The church was the center of a parish that originally included Bévilard, Malleray and Pontenet. In the 18th century the municipality of Champoz joined the parish. In 1746 a filial church of the parish was established in Sornetan.
The village was generally agrarian until the Basel-Delémont-Biel railroad built a station between Bévilard and Malleray in 1877. The convenient link to the transportation network encouraged several precision machining and watch making factories to set up in the municipality. In 1882 the Hélios gear factory opened and was followed in 1915 Schäublin machining factory. The watch industry was a major source of income and led to a growing population in the municipality until the 1970s. Beginning in the 1970s, competition from cheaper electronic watches forced many Swiss watchmakers out of business and the population in Bévilard dropped.
Before the merger, Bévilard had a total area of . As of 2012, a total of or 40.
Official source
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