Pocket Watches · Pocket watch
John Forrest Victorian silver fusee lever pocket watch, hallmarked London 1857
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- 1857 (hallmarked London)
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- England
- Object type
- Pocket watch
- Materials / technique
- silver
- Dimensions
- Diameter 52 mm
- Auction house
- Gardiner Houlgate (auction house), Corsham
- Lot
- Sale 39, lot 287
- Credit line
- Auction lot record: lot 287, The Watch Auction, Gardiner Houlgate (24th May 2023)
- Catalogue title (original)
- John Forrest Victorian silver fusee lever pocket watch, London 1857, the movement inscribed 'Chronometer maker to the Admiralty', no. 12128, with engraved balance cock, diamond endstone, regulator and (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Gardiner Houlgate (auction house), Corsham (lot Sale 39, lot 287), this is a pocket watch, made in England, dated 1857 (hallmarked London). The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Pocket Watches collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: silver. Recorded dimensions: Diameter 52 mm. The record is illustrated with 1 photograph.
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
Lot description — Gardiner Houlgate
John Forrest Victorian silver fusee lever pocket watch, London 1857, the movement inscribed 'Chronometer maker to the Admiralty', no. 12128, with engraved balance cock, diamond endstone, regulator and gilt three arm balance, dust cover signed John Forrest, London and numbered 12128, signed and numbered dial with Roman numerals, minute track and subsidiary seconds, gilt moon hands, within an engine turned case, case maker 'RO JE' (Richard Oliver & John Edwards), 52mm
Historical context
Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
American interchangeable-parts manufacture; railroad time standards; Swiss and German factory systems.
Machine production with interchangeable parts, pioneered by Waltham (1850s) and adopted by Elgin, Longines, Omega and others, made reliable lever watches widely affordable. Keyless winding became standard, railroad watch standards were introduced (1890s), and Swiss and American industries competed globally.
Read the period in the timelineMore pocket watches from this periodEarlier: Precision & Scientific Horology
Atlas type guide
Pocket chronometers and precision watches
A pocket chronometer is a watch built to observatory standards, traditionally with a detent escapement like a marine chronometer. English makers such as John Arnold and Thomas Earnshaw made the first pocket chronometers in the 1780s. In the nineteenth century the term increasingly referred to any watch that had passed official rating trials at observatories in Kew, Neuchâtel, Geneva or Besançon, and the Swiss lever chronometer became dominant.
Tourbillon and karrusel watches belong to the same world of precision. Breguet patented the tourbillon in 1801 to average out positional errors; Bahne Bonniksen's karrusel (1892) was a cheaper English alternative. Rating certificates (bulletins de marche) that accompany such watches are historical documents in their own right.
What to look for
- Detent escapement (no pallets; a fine spring detent locks the escape wheel).
- Observatory certificates, competition results or 'Chronometer' marking on the dial.
- Tourbillon carriage visible through an aperture or on the movement.
- Fine finishing: jewelled holes in gold chatons, diamond endstones.
Dating clues
- English pocket chronometers: c. 1780–1900.
- Observatory trials at Neuchâtel from 1866, Geneva from 1873, Kew from 1884.
- Karrusels: 1892–c. 1915.
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) escapementTourbillonDetached lever escapement
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