Silver pair-cased verge clock watch with date indicator [dial not original]

Description — British Museum

Movement frame: Circular gilt-brass plates with three pierced Egyptian pillars with scroll tops and one baluster pillar, possibly a replacement. Riveted potence and riveted counter-potence. Engraved decoration around the verge aperture. A recess in the pillar-plate with a separate bridge. Mainspring & set-up: Gilt-brass barrel with dovetailed cap and riveted steel hook. Tangent-screw set-up mounted on the potence plate, with a silver index disc crudely engraved 1-8, the index now missing. Fusee & stop-work: Gilt-brass fusee for gut line and with standard stop-work, the spring with an elaborately pierced foot. Train: Three wheel train of gilt-brass wheels, the second wheel and contrate pinion running in a separate bridge on the pillar-plate. Escapement & balance: Verge escapement, the steel 2-arm balance with a ringed rim. Screwed-on pierced foliate balance cock with very small foot. Motion work/duration: Pinion of report: 6 Dial wheel: 30 Fusee 12 turns. Duration: 29 hours approx. Striking train: Six wheel train, the last being a plain pinion. Driven by a fixed barrel pierced and engraved on the visible side, and with geared stop-work on the potence-plate. Warned release with count-wheel control, the count-wheel, for hours only, mounted on the potence-plate beneath a steel cock, engraved 1-12 around a rose. Released by a 12-point star wheel on the dial wheel. Dial & hand: Silver dial with four lugs around the outside engaging in recesses in the case rim. On the back are three bayonet lugs which attach it to the movement, the locking latch is now missing. The original dial has been radically changed. Recesses in the rear of the dial show that originally it had an outer engraved date ring within which a rotating ring and pointer showed the date. Inside this the chapter ring would have had hours and half-hours surrounding a quarters circle and probably the central are was pierced as in the dial of Cat. No. 00. Subsequently the date ring has been removed and the outer circle re-engraved with 144 divisions, ie the hour divided into 1/12ths or five minute divisions. Inside this is a later silver champlevé dial with Roman hours I-XII and lozenge half-hour marks surrounding a central 12-pont star. Later blued-steel hand. Cases: Silver inner case pierced and engraved with realistic flowers with two winding holes in the back. The plain silver bezel is a later replacement. Silver pendant. Silver outer case, the bezel and band pierced with roundels. The closing hook is now missing. Attached to the watch by a short length of black silk ribbon is a later brass cranked winding key, the handle decorated with a flower.

Curator's comments — British Museum

This watch is said to have been presented to Sir Edward Worsley in 1647 by King Charles I in gratitude for his help, in aiding the King's attempts to escape from Carisbrooke Castle. The dates of the maker, however, make this association unlikely. John Bayes was made a Free Brother in the Clockmakers' Company in November 1646. He was given the Freedom of the city of London in July 1649 by redemption in the Clockmakers' Company being 'debarred from freedom by service as he married before the expiration of his apprenticeship'. Bayes did not begin taking his own apprentices until 1648-9 when he took over Francis Matthews following the death of his previous master, Sampson Shelton. (see Loomes, Early Clockmakers of Great Britain pg.79]. These dates would appear to rule out the possibility of Charles I owning it in 1647 as it seems unlikely that the king would be a patron of a maker working outside the jurisdiction of the Company. Indeed the style of the case dates it nearer to 1655. Bayes is thought to have died between 1664 and 1666. For a further discussion see [Jagger, Royal Clocks pg.243]. : The alterations to the dial appear to have been done in the 1670-1680 period when single handed watches calibrated for 2.5 or 5 minutes were popular. For an example of this type signed, 'Jose Knibb, London' in the V&A see Hayward, J.F. ENGLISH WATCHES, HMSO 1969, plate 23: : The original bezel would have been engraved to carry on the ornament of the case band. A watches by Johannes Bayes with its original bezel is in the Victoria & Albert Museum, and is illustrated in Hayward, J.F. ibid. plate 21.