Instruments · Deck watch
Deck watch no. 2485 by Sidney Better
- Maker / attribution
- Sidney Better (maker)
- Date
- 1915
- Historical period
- Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Deck watch
- Materials / technique
- metal; wood; glass
- Dimensions
- Overall: 62 x 96 x 126 mm
- Holding institution
- Royal Museums Greenwich
- Accession / object no.
- ZBA7921
- Credit line
- National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
- Catalogue title (original)
- 2485 (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Royal Museums Greenwich (object number ZBA7921), this is a deck watch by Sidney Better, dated 1915. The Atlas places it in the Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking period (1900 – 1945) of its Instruments collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: metal; wood; glass. Recorded dimensions: Overall: 62 x 96 x 126 mm. The record is illustrated with 6 photographs.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Catalogue description — Royal Museums Greenwich
A deck watch numbered 2485, by Sidney Better. It has a jewelled movement with plate inscribed ‘S Better 4 Sandford Buildings, Arnold Circus / London E.2.’, ‘2485 / CW’ and the broad arrow. There is a lever escapement and a two-arm compensation balance. The movement is housed in an open-face silver case with a screw-down back. The back is inscribed on the outside ‘H.S.2’ and the broad arrow. The inside is inscribed ‘2485’. A winding crown is at the 12 o'clock position with a hand-set push-button at the one o'clock position. A white enamel dial has Roman hour numerals, Arabic five-minute/second figures outside and centre-seconds. The dial is inscribed ‘S. Better / 2485 / CW’ and the broad arrow. The inside of the case is punched 2485 next to the IX-position. The movement sits in a circular brass canister punched with ‘2485’ on the bottom. A brass bezel with bevelled glass screws down to secure the watch and protect the dial. The canister is screwed into a wooden deck box with a hinged lid opening 180°. The box has a press-button catch to lock it. The box lid includes a brass label-holder (empty). The underside of the box is covered in green baize. The outside top of the box incorporates a screwed-on circular tablet inscribed ‘S. Better / 2485 / CW’ and the broad arrow. The finisher and adjustor, Sidney Better, worked (alone, it is believed) at 4 Sandford Buildings, Arnold Circus, Clerkenwell, London. The British Admiralty used a number of timekeepers signed by Better during the Second World War.
Historical context
Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
The wristwatch displaces the pocket watch; waterproof cases, self-winding and grand complications.
Timing instruments became electrical and specialised: industrial time recorders, sports timers and aviation instruments.
Read the period in the timelineMore instruments from this periodEarlier: Industrial Revolution
Atlas type guide
Marine chronometers
A marine chronometer is a precision timekeeper carried at sea to find longitude: the navigator compares local noon, observed with a sextant, with the time at a reference meridian kept by the chronometer. Each hour of difference corresponds to fifteen degrees of longitude. John Harrison proved the method in the 1760s; Pierre Le Roy, Ferdinand Berthoud, John Arnold and Thomas Earnshaw then developed the detent escapement and the compensation balance that made chronometers practical to manufacture.
By the nineteenth century London, Liverpool, Le Locle and Glashütte supplied navies and merchant fleets. A typical box chronometer has a spring-detent escapement, a fusee to equalise mainspring torque, a bimetallic compensation balance with a helical balance spring, and is mounted in gimbals inside a wooden box so that it stays level.
What to look for
- Gimbals and a three-tier wooden box with a glazed inner lid.
- A power-reserve ('up and down') indicator on the dial, usually showing 56 hours on two-day instruments.
- Spring-detent escapement and a cylindrical (helical) balance spring visible through the movement.
- Admiralty or navy marks (broad arrow), and rating certificates from observatories.
- The maker's number on the dial and movement; many makers' registers survive, allowing dating.
Dating clues
- Earnshaw-type spring-detent chronometers became standard after about 1800.
- Auxiliary compensation devices on the balance appear from the mid-nineteenth century.
- Quartz and radio time signals ended routine use of mechanical chronometers in the 1970s and 1980s.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
Read next:Spring detent (chronometer) escapementFuseeBalance spring (hairspring)Detent escapement
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