Silver pair-cased verge watch with fob chain, seal and key

Record summary

Held and catalogued by British Museum (object number 1958,1201.393), this is a watch by Ben Willoughby, made in Bristol (England), British Isles, dated 1700–1710. The Atlas places it in the Early Modern Horology period (1600 – 1750) of its Pocket Watches collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: silver. Recorded dimensions: Diameter: 41.40 millimetres (dial) Diameter: 50.70 millimetres (outer case) Diameter: 16.90 millimetres (seal) Height: 29.60 millimetres (seal) Length: 108 millimetres (fob chain) Thickness: 32.70 millimetres (watch + outer case). 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

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.

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:FuseeBalance spring (hairspring)Verge escapement