Pocket Watches · Mail coach watch
Mail coach watch no. 14175 by Thwaites & Reed Ltd
- Maker / attribution
- Thwaites & Reed Ltd (maker)
- Date
- c. 1850
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- England
- Object type
- Mail coach watch
- Dimensions
- Overall: 96 x 70 x 30 mm
- Holding institution
- Royal Museums Greenwich
- Accession / object no.
- ZAA0269
- Credit line
- National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
- Catalogue title (original)
- 14175 (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Royal Museums Greenwich (object number ZAA0269), this is a mail coach watch by Thwaites & Reed Ltd, made in England, dated c. 1850. The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Pocket Watches collection. Recorded dimensions: Overall: 96 x 70 x 30 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
Catalogue description — Royal Museums Greenwich
Mail coach watch, mail guard's timekeeper in brass and mahogany case. This type of timekeeper is illustrative of the adoption and use of Greenwich Time on the British Railway network from the 1850s onwards. Dial white with black roman numerals, blued steel hands. Full plate movement with fusee and lever escapement.
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
Verge and pair-cased watches
After Christiaan Huygens and Robert Hooke applied the balance spring around 1675, the verge watch became a reasonably reliable timekeeper and the minute hand became standard. Through the eighteenth century the typical English watch was a pair-cased verge: a fusee movement with a pierced, engraved balance cock, housed in an inner case and a separate protective outer case, often of repoussé gold, shagreen, tortoiseshell or enamel.
French watches of the same period were thicker 'oignons', later replaced by elegant thinner watches following Jean-Antoine Lépine's bar-bridge calibre of c. 1770. Dutch, Swiss and German makers supplied international markets, and verge watches were made until the mid-nineteenth century as cheaper alternatives to the cylinder and lever.
What to look for
- The pierced balance cock on the backplate: winged (continental) or with a foot (English); its style dates the watch.
- Fusee and chain visible through the movement; key winding through the dial (early) or case back.
- Hallmarks inside English silver or gold cases, which give a date letter.
- Maker's name and serial number engraved on the backplate; watch papers inside outer cases.
- Enamel dials (after c. 1720) versus earlier champlevé metal dials.
Dating clues
- Champlevé dials: c. 1680–1730; white enamel dials thereafter.
- English case hallmarks give the year of assay to within a year.
- Verge watches persisted in cheap production until c. 1850.
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:Verge escapementBalance spring (hairspring)Verge escapement
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