Watch by Josiah Emery

Description — British Museum

Watch. Full-plate movement with fusee Lever escapement; compensated balance. White enamel dial, gold hands. Gold case.

Curator's comments — British Museum

From the Burney Newspaper collection on line The arrangement of the dial on this 1786 watch corresponds the lost watch advertised in 1792 'The World', newspaper advertisement 14 December 1792 cites a twenty guinea reward for a lost 'large single case gold watch which opens at the bottom and winds up through the cap; with two small circles in the dial for hours and seconds and the larger one for minutes from the centre. Maker's name Josiah Emery No.898 Also a gold wire chain to it, with a gold seal, engraved with the signs of the Zodiac. Whoever brings the above to Mr.Josiah Emery, Watchmaker, Cockspur Street, Charing Cross, shall receive Twenty Guineas reward.' This indicates the high value of a gold watch bearing Emery's name during his life time. View more about curator's comments Text from 'Watches', by David Thompson, London, 2008, p. 98-99. Josiah Emery GOLD CASED WATCH WITH DETACHED LEVER ESCAPEMENT LONDON, 1786 SIGNED: 'Josiah Emery, Charing Cross, London 1089' Thomas Mudge's pioneering work in the 1750s and 1760s created a new type of escapement for portable timekeepers: the detached lever escapement.… His first example was incorporated into an experimental bracket clock that he made around 1750. His first watch with such an escapement was made for Queen Charlotte in 1769, and delivered some time in 1770. Mudge's escapement was in some ways based on George Graham's dead-beat escapement for clocks, but placed a lever between the escape wheel and the balance that would lock and unlock as well as imparting impulse to the balance. This would finally allow the oscillating balance to swing unencumbered except when it was acting with the lever to carry out the three functions, hence the name detached. However, Mudge's original concept was a complicated one, difficult to replicate, and it was not until the late 1770s/early 1780s that the escapement was developed by, among others, Josiah Emery. He employed a highly skilled escapement maker, Richard Pendleton, and the result of their combined efforts was a series of pocket watches incorporating Emery's escapement. Josiah Emery had come to London from his native Switzerland probably in the 1750s and established himself as a watchmaker in Warwick Street, 'Opposite Hedge Lane', in Soho. The son of Jacques Emery and Susanne-Marie Gammeter, he was baptized at Etagnieres near Chardonne on 11 November 1725. In adult life, his reputation as a watchmaker quickly grew and thus it is perhaps not surprising that he should gain the attention of Mudge's patron and supporter Count Maurice von Brühl, who would spur Emery on to develop Mudge's escapement. On the matter, Emery said: "About seventeen or eighteen years ago Count Bruhl repeatedly urged me to make him a watch upon an escapement Mr. Mudge had invented. I for a long time successively answered that Mr Mudge was the properist person for such an undertaking; for to own the truth, I doubted whether it would be possible to ever make a common sized pocket watch with an escapement on so large a scale. But the Count not contented with my repeated refusal, at last prevailed upon me. It was then he brought me a large frame, like a clock escapement, but at the same time he gave me no rules concerning it, nor any of the smallest hint of the construction of Mr Mudge's watch; nor did I ever see the said watch till many years after (for the Queen had it) and his Majesty himself did me the honor to shew it to me." Between 1782 and 1786 Emery produced a series of lever escapement watches, at least thirty-eight of which were made. This particular example is signed 'Josiah Emery, Charing Cross, London 1089' on the movement. The 18-carat-gold case is hallmarked 'London 1786' and bears the mark, 'VW', of the casemaker Valentine Walker. The white enamel dial is of the so-called 'regulator' type. The minutes are marked around the outside and there are separate subsidiary dials, for hours above the centre, and for seconds below. The movement is characteristic of Emery's watches, with finely gilded plates and a decoratively engraved bridge on the back plate for the balance. The balance is of a type designed by John Arnold and commonly known as the 'double S', referring to the two S-shaped bimetallic compensation devices attached to the balance arms, designed to obviate timekeeping errors caused by changes in temperature. View more about curator's comments Comment from Richard Good, Catalogue of Watches in the British Museum. Vol. V (Unpublished manuscript) Made by Josiah Emery London, 1786 Gold cased stop-watch with an early lever escapement Signature: On the back plate and repeated on the dust cover 'Josiah Emery Charing Cross London 1089'. Across the centre of the dial 'EMERY LONDON'. Case: Gold consular case with the London hallmark for 1786, the casemaker's mark VW (1) and a duty mark. The seven-knuckle book hinge combined for both front and back of the case which is without springs. A chased stirrup pendant. The centre of the back has a chased medallion with a crest, almost erased.(2) Dial & Hands: The flat, regulator style dial is retained by two dog screws set in the ends of the feet. The hands are of blued steel, the minute hand in the centre with the hour hand above and the seconds hand below. The hands are of an unusual design. Dial-Plate: Held by three screws under the dial, and the movement retained in its case by three dog screws in the dial plate. Dust-cap: A gilded brass dust-cap attached by bayonet lugs to pieces on the inside of the case. Made in two parts, a deep-sided drum with one end open, the other raised over the balance cock, and with three holes drilled in it; one for the dust tube around the winding square, the other two for pegs on the back plate of the watch to prevent the drum from turning. The other part of the dust cap is a moulded ring adjusted to turn free through a short angle on the drum. It carries the bayonet fixing to retain the cover on pegs set in the edge of the case. Movement E.