Movements & Components · Watch movement
Watch movement, England, circa 1820
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- circa 1820
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- England, England
- Object type
- Watch movement
- Dimensions
- overall: 350 mm x 500 mm x 500 mm,
- Holding institution
- Science Museum Group, London
- Accession / object no.
- L2021-256
- Catalogue title (original)
- Quarter-repeating watch movement, ready for finishing
Record summary
Held and catalogued by Science Museum Group, London (object number L2021-256), this is a watch movement, made in England, England, dated circa 1820. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Movements & Components collection. Recorded dimensions: overall: 350 mm x 500 mm x 500 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
Science Museum Group description
At around the time this quarter-repeating movement was being produced, Rees’s Cyclopedia of 1819-20 defined 13 different craftsmen employed within the trade of the ‘movement maker’ in the fabrication of an unfinished plain verge movement. Many of the best British manufacturers of these movements were, certainly from the 18th century onwards, based in the North-West of England in Lancashire. Rees goes on to define a further 21 tradesmen employed to complete the watch, once the rough movement had been received by the commissioning ‘watchmaker’, either directly from the manufacturer or via one of the London tool shops. For a repeating watch, the same craftsmen were also employed to make those parts of the repeating work similar to the plain movement, such as its mainspring or ‘runners’ (the repeater’s train of wheels and pinions). One additional skilled craftsman was employed in the place of the ‘motion-maker’; the ‘repeating motion-maker’, who made the repeating work found under the dial, and for later repeaters like this one, the gongs on which the hammers struck. It is clear that this unfinished quarter-repeating watch had yet to pass through the hands of at least 20 of the 34 or so craftsmen defined by Rees as being involved in its manufacture. Clockmakers' Museum No. 1520
Historical context
Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
Harrison solves longitude; Mudge invents the lever; Breguet's Paris workshop defines the modern watch.
The age of escapement invention: cylinder, duplex, lever, detent and many experimental escapements; compensation balances and fine finishing.
Read the period in the timelineMore movements & components from this periodEarlier: Early Modern Horology
Atlas type guide
Clock and watch movements
The movement is the mechanism of a clock or watch, without its case and dial. It consists of the power source (weight or mainspring in its barrel, sometimes with a fusee), the going train of wheels and pinions, the escapement and oscillator, the motion work that drives the hands, and in many cases additional trains for striking or complications.
From the eighteenth century watch movements were increasingly produced in stages: Swiss and French ébauche makers supplied rough movements that finishers, repasseurs and retailers completed and signed. Calibre numbers — first used systematically by American and Swiss factories in the nineteenth century — make it possible to identify movements, find spare parts and date watches.
What to look for
- Plate and bridge layout: full plate, three-quarter plate, Lépine bar calibre, bridges and cocks.
- Jewel count and whether jewels are set in chatons or rubbed in.
- Signatures, calibre and serial numbers on the plate or under the dial.
- Finishing: Geneva stripes (Côtes de Genève), perlage, bevelled edges, blued screws.
- Fusee and chain, going barrel, or electrical components.
Dating clues
- Full-plate English movements dominate before c. 1850; three-quarter plate and Lépine calibres after.
- Jewelled movements spread after Facio and Debaufre's patent of 1704, mainly in English work until c. 1800.
- Calibre numbers and factory serials allow close dating for industrial production after 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:FuseeDetached lever escapement
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