The earliest wristwatches

The Earliest Wristwatches Although many firms claim to have invented the wristwatch, there must be a serious question as to whether such a simple development really required to actually be "invented" as such - surely it is obvious?

In their monumental "Technique and History of the Swiss Watch" (ISBN 0 600 03633 2, and weighing in at nearly 2.5kg, truly monumental!) the authors, Eugène Jaquet and Alfred Chapuis, relate the following story on the origin of the wristwatch: "Much has been written about this subject, and we ourselves have heard the following story from an old engraver: A good woman, seated on a bench in a public park, was suckling her child. In order to observe the time, she had attached her watch around her arm. A passer-by was struck by this naive ingenuity. On his return home, he soldered two lugs on to a lady's watch, and added a strap."

Are Jaquet and Chapuis really, seriously, expecting us to believe that the combined brains of the watch industry, which had produced such mechanical complications as the chronograph, minute repeater, perpetual calendar, and the tourbillon, were unable to come up with the idea of soldering two bits of wire on to a watch case so that a strap could be attached? I don't think so! I don't know why Jaquet and Chapuis included this ridiculous story in their otherwise valuable work, because the real story of the evolution of the man's wristwatch is much more interesting than this.

1868 Patek-Philippe Bracelet Watch The very first wristwatches we know about were small watches on bracelets (bracelet-watches or montres-bracelets) intended for ladies. An account book of Jaquet-Droz and Leschot of Geneva mentions, in 1790, "a watch to be fixed to a bracelet,". When Eugène de Beauharnais married Princess Auguste-Amélie of Leuchtenbergin 1809, the Empress josephine presented her daughter-in-law with two bracelets, one containing a watch, the other a calendar. These were made in 1806 by the Parisian jeweller Nitot. In 1810 the French watch maker Bréguet was comissioned by the Queen of Naples to make a wristwatch, which was completed in 1812. Patek Phillipe made the key-winding lady's bracelet watch shown on the left in 1868 for the Countess Koscowicz of Hungary. By the end of the nineteenth

century, many if not most watch makers were producing bracelet watches, often with elaborate enamelling and jewelling of saphires, rubies, or diamonds.

But these earliest wrist watches were not serious watches; they were worn by ladies as novelties, or elaborate jewellery. Wrist watches were regarded as too small to be properly engineered in order to keep time accurately; and too prone to damage by shock, or contamination with dust and moisture due to their exposed location; and, perhaps most damningly as far as men were concerned, effeminate, because wrist watches were worn by ladies.

A gentleman who wanted to keep track of time wore a pocket watch, usually tucked into a waistcoat pocket on the end of a long "Albert," a chain with a bar to fasten it to a button hole. And this presented another challenge to makers of wristwatches. The environment within a waist coat pocket is relatively benign; warm and dry. But strapped to the end of an arm, the wrist watch is exposed to all manner of hazards and rough treatment, it is prone to getting knocked, exposed to dust and splashed with water at the very least.

The true story of the wrist watch, or at least of the man's wrist watch (because as we know ladies wristwatches had been available for centuries) is of how it overcame these technical and social barriers to become an essential part of every mans wardrobe - just as the finest and most complicated wrist watches still are today, despite the fact that, with every gadget from phones to computers having a clock built in, they are no longer needed to tell the time!

From Pocket Watch to Wrist Watch The development of the mans wrist watch from the pocket watch was a gradual process, not an overnight event. Although there were many twists and turns along the way, and almost every manufacturer now claims to have been the first to make a man's wrist watch, the true story behind the man's wrist watch is broadly as follows.

It all began in the second half of the nineteenth century with the needs of the military for the precise timing of manoeuvres, combined with the difficulty of using a pocket watch during such manoeuvres.

Faced with the difficulty of pulling out a pocket watch every few minutes (not the easiest of acts at the best of times, but made especially difficult if one was wearing a military great coat and crouching in a trench under enemy fire) or using one hand to hold the watch up to your face as the vital last few seconds ticked by, whilst holding the horse's reins with the other, and yet still needing to wield a pistol, officers soon recognised the utility of strapping a watch to the wrist. Thus began the development of the man's wrist watch. At first pocket watches were adapted by being placed in leather cups with wrist straps, and then by having lops of wire called lugs soldered onto the case to take a leather strap.

Manufacturers noted this demand and, recognising that a standard pocket watch was rather too large to be comfortably worn on the wrist, started producing purpose made wrist watches. These were initially based on smaller movements originally designed for ladies watches, placed into purpose designed cases with wire lugs to take a leather strap. Although taken up by the military, these wrist watches did not find

favour with the general public. They were regarded as too small to keep accurate time, too vulnerable to damage or dust and water, and simply not fashionable.

Developments in accuracy and case design ensued, and by the time of the First World War (WW1) almost every manufacturer had a mans wrist watch in their range, even if they weren't selling many of them. The war changed the perception that wrist watches weren't for men. Many officers recognised the drawbacks of using a pocket watch and purchased their own wrist watches. Civilians started seeing men home on leave wearing wrist watches, and of course after the war men who were demobilised continued to wear the wrist watch they had worn on active service and this gradually changed the fashion so that the wrist watch became first an acceptable, and later an essential, man's accessory.

1901 Goldsmiths Advert Some Salient Events and Manufacturers

In the paragraphs that follow I have used some of the salient events of history and the records of some of the most significant manufacturers to illustrate stages in the development of the wrist watch, along with some diverse bits of information that I thought were interesting or relevant when I was writing the item. I hope you find this interesting, and if you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know.

Military Requirements - The Second Boer War The second Boer War was fought between the British Army and descendants of Dutch settlers called Boers (farmers) between 1899 and 1902 in Southern Africa. It was a long war involving large numbers of troops from many British dominions. The Boers operated as self-organising commando units, they were used to life in the saddle and to hunting with a rifle; they new the terrain, and were highly motivated.

Against such a highly mobile adversary, British officers were forced to develop the technique of using precision timing to coordinate troop movements and synchronize attacks against the Boer's positions.

Strapping a watch to ones wrist so that it could regularly be checked quickly and easily whilst on horseback, rather than having to fumble about with a pocket watch, was essential under precisely timed and fast moving battlefield conditions.

Pictured right is an advertisement for a military pocket watch, "The Companys Service Watch," which appeared in the 1901 Goldsmiths Company Watch and Clock Catalog. It was described as "The most reliable timekeeper in the World for Gentlemen going on Active Service or for rough wear." The "UNSOLICITED TESTIMONIAL" dated June 7th 1900 quoted in the advert states "Please put enclosed Watch in a plain Silver Case. The metal has, as you can see, rusted considerably, but I am not surprised, as I wore it continually in South Africa on my wrist for 3½ months. It kept most excellent time, and never failed me. Faithfully yours, Capt. North Staffs. Regt."

The pocket watch would have been mounted in a leather cup sewn onto a leather wrist strap like the one illustrated below, and the writer was obviously on active service during the height of the Anglo-Boer war referred to above. Was it a wrist watch then? A moot point.

The watches in the Goldsmith's advert are cased in "Borgel Patent" style cases, where the movement, dial and bezel are fixed to an externally threaded holder, and the whole assembly then screws into the threaded case from the front. Patented by François Borgel in 1891, this design was an early attempt at making the case less permeable to water and dust. You can read more about these Borgel cases on my Borgel page.

Pocket Watch Wrist Strap Interestingly, the same 1910 Goldsmiths catalogue contains two pages of advertisements for ladies' watches mounted on either rigid or flexible bracelets, and 12 pages of adverts for men's pocket watches, but no adverts at all for men's wristwatches. Men's pocket watches by this date had reached a high degree of sophistication. The cheapest and simplest watch advertised is a silver keyless watch with a jewelled lever movement, compensation balance, enamel dial and crystal glass at ÂŁ2:10. The most expensive is a Gentlemen's gold, London made, keyless repeater, with chronograph registering minutes, seconds, and fifths of seconds, and a perpetual calendar showing day, date, month and moon phase, with fully jewelled movement, BrĂŠguet hairspring, compensation balance, adjusted for all temperatures and positions, guaranteed to keep most accurate time, for the princely sum of ÂŁ200. No wristwatch at the time could hope to compete with such a display of English horological excellence! (and not many have since, come to that!)

1912 Borgel Advert 1912 Borgel Wrist Watch This advert appeared in a 1912 issue of Revue Internationale de l'Horlogerie. The cases illustrated at the bottom of the advert are Borgel one piece screw cases, the same as the ones in the Goldsmiths catalogue. But there is also a new twist: unlike the pocket watch in the Goldsmiths advertm which had to be strapped to the wrist by a purpose made leather strap, the case at the bottom right of the advert has been adapted to take a "bracelet" and be worn as a wrist watch!

The advert goes on to say that this wrist watch case has been "specifically requested by motorists and members of the English and colonial army." So by 1912 watch manufacturers were beginning to wake up to the idea that certain activities, and military men in particular, were starting to demand wrist watches.

But these were still a long way from public acceptance and popularity.

Who Made My Watch?

If you have a Swiss watch from the nineteenth or early twentieth century, you might never find out who made it - branding like we are used to today just didn't exist at the time, particularly on mass produced Swiss watches. To discover why, we need to go a little into the history of watch making.

The Goldsmiths Company catalogue notes either that "These watches are made abroad specially to the order of the Goldsmiths and Silversmiths Company, Ltd., who examine them in London and guarantee them." or that "Some of the intricate parts of these watches are made abroad" without even mentioning where (although this was presumably Switzerland) let alone a makers name.

The History of Watch Making Mechanical clocks appeared in Europe during the 13th century. These were usually installed in towers, and used bells to sound the hours, hence the name "clock" from the Medieval Latin word clocca (bell).

Their purpose was to sound the canonical hours, the times during the day at which prayers were said.

They were weight driven mechanisms, and as time went past smaller versions started to be made for use in houses. At some stage, dials and hands were added, with a chapter ring marking out the hours.

For some two hundred years, clocks were driven by falling weights. Although flat pieces of steel had been used as springs in locks etc. for many centuries, the invention of the flat spiral coiled spring in the 15th century meant that a spring could be used to drive the clock mechanism instead of weights. Clocks could now be made small enough to stand on a table instead of hanging on a wall, and for the first time could be moved around while they were going. Inevitably these spring driven clocks, usually in the shape of a drum or tambour, were made smaller and smaller as their makers showed off their skills, and eventually became small enough so that they could be carried on the person as ornaments, initially on a neck chain, and then hanging from the belt. These were the first watches.

The first watches used the verge and foliot escapement as found in lantern clocks. There was no balance spring, and the timekeeping depended entirely on the inertia of the foliot as it was accelerated one way and the other by the crown wheel, or escape wheel, under the force of the main spring. In the 17th century the foliot, a bar pivoted at its middle on the verge staff with weights at its ends, was gradually superceded by the balance wheel, which had a higher moment of inertia for a given size. The changing force of the main spring as it ran down, and friction in the train of gear wheels between the main spring and the escape wheel meant that the accuracy of time keeping was poor, and consequently these watches were only fitted with a single hour hand.

The earliest watches were more novelties than accurate instruments, and were sold to princes and very wealthy customers. The first centre of watch making was in Southern Germany, where the numerous principalities meant a good number of princes to support the trade. Each watch was hand made, with elaborate decoration, and encased in precious metals with exotic enamel and jewel decorations. They were made in very small numbers, and guilds sprang up as the established watch makers sought to restrict who could enter the trade, and thus keep supply restricted and prices high.

In the middle of the 17th century, around 1657, a small spiral spring called the balance spring was added to the balance wheel. The balance spring and balance wheel assembly has its own natural frequency of back and forth rotations, making the timekeeping of the watch less sensitive to changes in the force delivered by the main spring. The accuracy of timekeeping was improved so much that it was worth adding another hand to the watch to indicate minutes.

Watch making came to Switzerland, to Geneva, in the 16th century. It received a considerable boost when Calvinist reforms banned the wearing jewellery, forcing goldsmiths to offer watches as an alternative. In 1601 the Watchmakers Guild of Geneva of Geneva was established to control the trade in and around Geneva. The guild ensured that the quality of watches made by its members was maintained at the highest levels, but also restricted practices that could have reduced the cost of watches. Mass production was banned, the number of apprentices kept artificially low, and entry to the guild (and thus permission to make watches) strictly controlled. As a result of this, the reputation of Geneva watches for quality was very high, as were the prices.

In 1672, Daniel JeanRichard was born in Les Bressel, near to La Sagne and not far from Le Locle, in what is now the Swiss canton of Neuchátel. Little is known of JeanRichard's background. There are suggestions that he was a locksmith, and Kathleen Pritchard, in "Swiss Timepiece Makers 1775-1975" says he was "probably" a goldsmith. There is a legend that around 1690, a horse trader passing through the area noticed JeanRichard's aptitude with mechanical things and left his broken watch for repair.

JeanRichard took the watch apart and repaired it, making notes and drawings of the parts in the process. Based on these notes and drawings, JeanRichard proceeded to teach himself watch making, in the process designing and making the necessary tools of the trade. However, although there may be some truth in this story, it is probably mostly legend, and similar tales are told in other ancient watch making areas.

However, what is known is that 1691 at the age of 19, Daniel JeanRichard opened a watch workshop near Le Locle, and proceeded to revolutionize the watch industry. He defied the restrictions of the guild system and employed local farmers the area of the high mountains of the Jura around La Chaux-deFonds and Le Locle, who had little work during the long winters, to manufacture individual parts, which were then assembled into complete watches by a master watch maker. This system of établissage began the division of labour and specialisation that allowed the Swiss to mass produce produce high quality watches at low prices, and that made the area around La Chaux-de-Fonds and Le Locle the heart of the Swiss watch industry.

Daniel JeanRichard is still regarded as a hero and legend in Le Locle and La Chaux-de-Fonds. In the center of Le Locle, in front of the post office, is a statue of him in a workers apron, examining a watch.

There is a Daniel JeanRichard museum in La Sagne, and a street is named after him in La Chaux-deFonds. The picture below is the banner from the front page of La Horlogère Suisse, a trade paper published in La Chaux-de-Fonds. At the top, in the centre, is a picture of the local hero, Daniel JeanRichard.

The name of any of these individual little establishments in an obscure mountainous part of Switzerland would have meant nothing to the man in the street at the time, and who would want to know who made the balance staff or plates in their watch anyway? The only form of branding as such was usually the name of the jeweller who retailed the watch, and who would be a known and trusted name in his city or town. The jeweller had his name printed on the dial in the big white space between the central hand boss and the "12" - but because this was done in indian ink or similar onto the enamel dial after it had been fired, this was not very permanent and has usually worn off or become very faint. It was not until 1921 that Wilsdorf and Davis started putting "Rolex" on a small proportion of their watch dials and taking out adverts to promote their "brand", and not until several years later that all Rolex watches were so marked.

Sometimes the maker can be interpreted from marks stamped on to the movement, for instance if you ever see "13.34" stamped almost under the balance wheel, you know you have a Longines movement in your hands even without any other marks. Sometimes a makers mark is revealed when the dial plate is removed. If you have the watch overhauled, make sure the watchmaker looks out for this and any other tell-tale signs, and if possible get him to photograph the movement from the under-dial side. One very

experienced watchmaker spotted that one of my watches was an Omega, even though it wasn't marked in any way, he just recognised the movement after servicing many over the years.

Some Early Makers of Wrist Watches The list of makers below is not intended to be exhaustive or definitive. It is a collection of makers of early mens wrist watches with interesting tales to tell. It begins with Girard-Perregaux, who claim to have been the first to make significant quantites of wrist watches. Unfortunately they are unable to produce any factual evidence to support this claim, and some doubt its veracity. The next entry is Cartier, and the wrist watch they made in 1904 is well documented, but was a single item made following a very specific request, so that doesn't qualify them as the first mass maker of wrist watches.

And then follow a parade of well known industry names, who all claim to have been the first to make wrist watches.

But who was the first factory to start mass producing and selling wrist watches to the general public?

The simple answer is that we don't know, and probably never will: because there wasn't just one visionary pioneer who saw the future and single handedly converted the public's taste and fashion from pocket watch to wrist watch. The demand arose first from military requirements, and then manufacturers responded to it by taking watches they already made and adding attachments for straps.

It wasn't very difficult to do, and it seems to me that they all climbed onto the bandwagon at about the same same time, in the years between 1900 and 1920.

Similar to German Navy Watch Š Girard-Perregaux Girard-Perregaux In 1879 the German Emperor Wilhelm I visited the Berlin Trade Fair and saw some experimental wrist watches made by Girard-Perregaux of La Chaux de Fonds in Switzerland. He gave an order for 1,000 of these for the German Imperial Navy, and as many as 2,000 such wristwatches were delivered in 1880, so Girard-Perregaux claim to be the first manufacturers of wristwatches in significant volume.

Unfortunately, not much is known about these wristwatches because the archives of Girard-Perregaux were partially lost some years later, and it is thought that all the watches are lost too. This is a little surprising if there were thousands produced, and hopefully one will turn up one day. But in the absence of such evidence, some have claimed that the story isn't factual.

It is believed that they were 10 or 12 lignes, with a small seconds hand, in gold cases to resist the corrosive effects of salt water, on chain wrist bands, and with a grid-like metal cover over the dial. To the left is a picture kindly provided to me by Girard-Perregaux of a watch thought to be similar to the German Navy Watch. It shows a gold watch with fixed wire lugs holding it to a leather strap. To protect the crystal there is a metal grill attached to the case with a hinge at 12 O'Clock, and a push release at 6 O'Clock to open the grill and look at the dial.

A modern Cartier Santos Cartier In 1904 Louis Cartier made a wristwatch for the aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont. SantosDumont had won the Deutsch prize for flying his airship from the Park Saint Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and back in under 30 minutes. He celebrated his success at Maxim's, where he complained to Cartier about the difficulty of checking his pocket watch while flying. Cartier went to work and produced a watch to be worn on the wrist with a leather strap and a small buckle. Santos-Dumont never again took off without this wristwatch, and Cartier started selling Santos-Dumont wrist watches to the public in 1911, and is still selling them today, which is some achievement.

Omega Another maker of very early wristwatches was the manufacturer founded as an assembly workshop in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1848 by the 23 year old Louis Brandt. As early as 1892, in partnership with Audemars Piguet, this firm produced the worlds first minute repeater wristwatch, ringing the hours, quarter-hours and minutes on command.

First Omega wristwatch 1900 In 1894 a completely new 19 ligne pocket watch movement was introduced which proved extremely successful. Its salient points were the simplicity of its construction, and the interchangability of its parts which were made by ground breaking new automated production processes. The company's banker, Henri Rieckel, suggested the name "Omega" for the new watch. The new calibre made Omega the principal watchmaker in Switzerland, both technically and numerically. The overwhelming success of watches bearing the Omega name led to it being adopted as the sole name used for watches by the company from 1903. Omega began producing wrist watches in 1900, and men's wrist watches from 1902 The picture to the left shows an Omega ladies' wristwatch manufactured in 1900 with a LĂŠpine movement in a double hinged silver case, with white enamel dial, railway minute track, skeleton Arabic hour numerals and blued steel pear-shaped hands. This was the first mass-produced wristwatch manufactured by Omega, and also one of the first industrially made wristwatches in the world. Omega started making men's wristwatches in 1902 and Britain's Royal Flying Corps chose Omega wristwatches in 1917 as for its combat units, as did the American army in 1918.

1899 IWC Wrist Watch IWC - International Watch Company

The International Watch Company, or IWC, was set up in Schaffhausen in the German-speaking region of Eastern Switzerland, in 1868 by the American engineer and watchmaker Florentine Ariosto Jones. Jones imported machine tools from USA, or had them made in-house, and brought together Swiss craftsmanship with the standardised precision of machine tools to increase the precision of the movements, and interchangeability of parts, which simplified assembly and repair work.

IWC say on their web site that at the end of the nineteenth century they began producing men's wrist watches. These were fitted with movements that had previously been used for ladies' pocket watches, because the movement diameter of 12.5 ligne (28.2 mm) was the right size for a man's wrist watch.

One of these wrist watches in a 14 carat red gold case with hinged lugs, pin set hands, enamel dial with Roman numerals, an IWC movement calibre 64-12.5 with 15 jewels, three screwed chatons bi-metallic balance wheel, and BrĂŠguet hairspring, was sold on 30 December 1899 to Scholokoff in St. Petersburg.

Stauffer, Son & Co. The firm of Stauffer, Son & Co. was established in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1830. By 1860 Stauffer, Son & Co. had established a London branch, a trading partnership between Jules Stauffer and Francis Claude at 12 Old Jewry Chambers. Charles Nicolet became a partner when Jules Stauffer retired, and in 1874

Claude retired and Nicolet took over complete control of the London branch. Charles Nicolet's initials CN were registered with the Assay Office as a sponsor's mark, and these initials appear with the hallmarks in watches imported by the London branch.

This advert from the 1920 edition of the Indicateur Davoine states that Stauffer, Son & Co. are manufacturers of chronographs which have won first prizes and first class awards from Kew, Neuchatel and Geneva, and been adopted by the English Admiralty. The telegraphic address is the factory name Atlas, Chaux-de-Fonds. The advert refers to Systèmes Brevétes, or patented systems, which is a reference to a Stauffer, Son & Co. 1901 patent CH 24577 "Mécanisme de chronographe" Stauffer, Son & Co. and IWC

According to IWC, from 1894 the London branch of Stauffer, Son & Co. was supplied with watches from Schaffhausen, and from 1898 the movements of these bore the mark "S & Co." under a crown inside an oval with the words "Peerless" and Swiss made. The S & Co. mark with a crown inside an oval was registered by Stauffer Son & Co. in 1880, and Peerless was a trademark registered by Stauffer, Son & Co. in 1896, so IWC didn't have control of these marks and Stauffer could use them any way they chose.

Stauffer & Co. retained its monopoly over the IWC watch brand until the mid-1930s. Thereafter they were sold under their original IWC trade name, as they had been prior to 1898. In 1936, the firm of Edwin Harrop of 99-119 Rosebery Ave, London was advertising that they were concessionaires for the British Empire for IWC watches. At the same time, Stauffer, Son & Co. were advertising Peerless and Peertone watches.

Sometimes one sees watches marked SS & Co. or S & Co. advertised as if they were made by IWC. This is because IWC today is a prestigious and very expensive make, and the sellers hope to get a better price by associating the watch with the IWC name. If the mark is S & Co. (note the single "S") in an oval under a crown like the one shown here on the right, and the movement is also marked Peerless, then it could be an IWC.However, according to Michael Friedberg, a moderator of the IWC Forum and a man who knows his IWCs, there are non-IWC movements - he says plenty of them - marked S & Co. and/or Peerless. To be sure of the identification, the movement calibre should be compared with known IWC calilbres. This can be done on Dr Ranfft's web site, or by asking in the forum on the IWC web site. The images here of the marks are taken from an S & Co. IWC wristwatch in a silver Borgel case, an heirloom belonging to Russell Bull.

According to COLLECTING IWC WATCHES How to Recognize Vintage from Fakes by: Adrian van der Meijden and Hans Goerter, IWC watches supplied to Stauffer, Son & Co. should be marked under the dial or the balance cock with the Schaffhauser "bock" stamp (The bock (goat) is the symbol of the town of Schaffhausen). Pictured here is part of a plate from an S & Co. movement, identified as an IWC calibre 63 from circa 1908, with the bock stamp, and also reference to Swiss patent number CH 31457 which was granted to Rauschenbach / IWC in 1904. With these marks, even without checking the calibre, this is clearly an IWC movement.

However, of course the real situation is not quite as clear cut as this, and it seems that not all IWC watches supplied to Stauffer, Son & Co. had the bock mark. I think it is probably true that if your watch has the bock stamp in addition the mark "S & Co." under a crown inside an oval with the words "Peerless", then it is pretty certain that it is an IWC, and the patent number would be a clincher (unless of course these had been added by a clever forger) but if it doesn't, that doesn't rule out the possibility that it may be an IWC. Again, the only way to be certain is to check the calibre.

If the mark is "S S & Co." (note the double S in "SS") and accompanied by three little triangular marks, themselves in a triangular formation, like the one shown here, this is a mark registered by Stauffer Son and Co. in 1886, and nothing to do with IWC. However, watches from a company that won first prizes and first class awards from Kew, Neuchatel and Geneva, and were adopted by the English Admiralty, are obviously high quality pieces in their own right, and suffer mainly from the name Stauffer Son & Co. not being well known today. If you can find such a watch and avoid paying an IWC style price for it, then I would think it would be a very good investment.

Longines Longines' watch making origins date to 1832 in Saint-Imier, Switzerland. In 1867 a new watch factory was built at a location called "Les Longines" and the Longines Watches brand was born. In 1905 Longines started making ladies wrist watches, and in 1910 introduced a man's wristwatch.

Gruen Gruen made both men's and women's wristwatches starting in 1908, but these proved popular only with women. Like the others mentioned here, Gruen was one of the few companies to take wristwatches seriously this early, seeing their potential in spite of disappointing early sales to men. Gruen made both wrist and pocket watches for the military during World War One. Most had silver cases, which would tarnish but would not corrode under the conditions in the trenches, and to meet U.S. military regulations, luminous dial markings and hands.

By 1918 Gruen were making a "Moisture Proof Military Wrist Watch" under US patent 1,303,888 registered by Frederick Gruen on May 29, 1819. The watch was contained inside an outer case, which had a screw-on bezel with crystal, but no crown, and hence no hole for the winding stem. The drawback was, of course, that every day the owner had to unscrew the bezel, flip the watch from its outer case and wind it up, being careful not to lose the loose bezel in the process. And the same procedure was necessary to set the time. A picture of this watch can be seen at 1908: Gruen Wristwatches. This is part of a fantastic history of the Gruen Watch Company written by Paul Schliesser.

The 1918 Gruen design is eactly the same design as the "Hermetic" case supplied to Rolex and others under a 1921 Swiss patent number CH 89276 registered by Jean Finger. A comparison of the two patents can be seen in the picture, and you can see how similar they are. Did Finger copy Gruen's patent? It would appear so. The principal difference between the two patents is that in the Gruen patent the watch is held to the outer case by a hook and can be easily removed, the watch in the Finger patent is hinged to the case and the hinge pin must be removed if the movement is to be freed from the outer case.

Movado Movado was founded in 1881 by 19-year old entrepreneur Achille Ditesheim in the village of La Chauxde-Fonds, Switzerland. The name of the firm was changed to Movado, meaning "always in motion" in the international language of Esperanto, in 1905 In 1912 Movado created the Polyplan, a revolutionary, patented movement constructed on three planes to fit a case curved to follow the wrist, and in 1914 developed their "Soldier's Watch" with an integral protective grill or shrapnel guard in a shrewd anticipation of the forthcoming conflict. This was a very successful product for Movado, and it is believed that they sold some 2,000 each year during the First World War.

Gallet Chronograph Gallet et Cie Gallet are one of the oldest watchmakers in the business, tracing their history back to one Humbertus Gallet, who in 1466 moved from Bourg-en-Bresse in France to Geneva and was a builder of tower clocks.

His family were joined some 220 years later by other members of the Gallet family, who were recorded as goldsmiths and watchmakers.

In 1912 Gallet made the first wristwatch to include a centre second hand, that is one originating from the centre of the dial along with the hour and minute hands. Previously wristwatches either lacked a second hand or had a small subsidiary seconds dial which was difficult to read accurately. A centre second hand is useful for timing tasks such measuring the human heart rate. Gallet's "sweep second" watches were issued to nurses and military medical personnel during World War 1.

In 1914 Gallet made the first chronograph wristwatch, which they say was made to the order of the British military, but I have not been able to substantiate this claim. This watch was a reduced size version of a traditional pocket chronograph, for which Gallet were well known, and still featured the three piece case, enamel dial, and centre button (pusher) crown of its larger predecessor.

The Move To Public Acceptance And Fashionability So we can see that a number of companies were producing both men's and ladies wrist watches in the first decade of the twentieth century. However, the vast majority of the wrist watches that were actually sold, as opposed to just being available in the manufacturer's catalogue, were ladies wrist watches. The idea of a man wearing a watch on his wrist was gradually gaining acceptance with military men, sportsmen and automobilists, but not with the wider public. There was still the general view that a watch worn on the wrist, being necessarily smaller than a pocket watch, and subject to being more generally knocked about, exposed to dust, water from hand washing etc. would never be able to keep accurate time, and it was still perceived by some as unmanly. Two things now conspired to bring about a more rapid change in the fortunes of the wristwatch: the commitment of one Hans Wilsdorf; and the occurrence of the first World War. Hans Wilsdorf Hans Wilsdorf, with financial help from his brother-in-law Alfred Davis, founded the watch importing and distribution firm of Wilsdorf & Davis in London in 1905. Wilsdorf was convinced that the wristwatch was the way of the future, and soon contracted the firm of Hermann Aegler to manufacture wristwatchs for him. Wilsdorf was a perfectionist, and never ceased pressing Aegler to improve the timekeeping of the watches they made for him, which he now insisted be branded "Rolex" - a name he had invented. In 1910 Aegler submitted a Rolex wrist watch to the Bienne testing station. It received a First Class certificate and thus became the first wristwatch to be officially certified as a chronometer in Switzerland. On July 15th 1914, a Rolex wristwatch received a Class A precision certificate from the Kew Observatory in Greenwich, which had previously only been achieved by marine chronometers. Wilsdorf remarked that this was a "red letter day" in the development of his firm, which he would never forget.

The ability of a wristwatch to maintain accurate time keeping could no longer be be held in any doubt.

You can read more about Hans Wilsdorf and the Rolex story on my Rolex page World War One - WW1 - Officer's Trench Watches

1917 British Military Wristwatch Now that the wristwatch had been developed to be an accurate time keeper, it was only social acceptability that held it back. The first World War (World War One, 1914 - 1918) first required, and ultimately legitimised, the wristwatch. The standard timepieces issued to officers were still pocket watches, but these were impractical to use in the cramped conditions of the trenches, and in the open cockpits of early aircraft, and many officers soon purchased their own wristwatches, hence these watches are often referred to as "officers" or "trench" watches. The fact that they were purchased by individuals rather than being issued by the military authorities accounts for the enormous variety of WW1 era wrist watches, which makes them so interesting to collectors.

British Military Wrist Watches In his book "A concise guide to Military Timepieces 1880-1990", Wesolowski remarks that: "Probably as a result of popular demand, the War Department procured a variety of wristlets for evaluation and issue, circa 1917. All the wristlets that were made available have a number of different unsigned Swiss 15 jewel lever movements, while the case designs came in two types. Some had snap-back cases, which could not form an adequate hermetic seal and consequently were judged unsuitable for field conditions; many of these were sold off as surplus in the 1920s and bear the broad arrow cancellation mark. Other wristlets came with screw-back cases which offered better protection. All the wristlets had black enamel dials and radium numerals and hands."

The picture to the left is of one such watch in my collection, identical to one of the watches pictured by Wesolowski with the "pheon" or broad arrow on the case back which denotes it as War Department property. The watch has a screw back and bezel case made from nickel, and the movement is one of the apparently unsigned Swiss 15 jewel lever movements Wesolowski refers to. Thanks to fellow watch collector Cary Hurt, this movement has been identified as made by A Schild, and during a recent service the tell tale letters AS in an oval were found on the top plate underneath the dial. The Schild family, along with the Girards, set up the first factories making ebauches in Grenchen, and this became the

principal industry in the area. Adolf Schild set up A Schild & Cie in Grenchen in 1896 with the intention of making high quality ebauches with all the parts being interchangeable, and did much research into tooling to achieve this. In 1914 the company won a gold medal at the Swiss National Exhibition in Berne for the interchangeability of its parts. A Schild made the movements for John Harwoods revolutionary self winding watch, and supplied ebauches to many Swiss watch manufacturers including Gruen and Girard Perregaux. It would be interesting to know who was responsible for casing up this particular movement and submitting it to the British War Department for appraisal.

Other Military Wrist Watches American forces seem to have been issued with wrist watches as soon as they entered the war in 1917. I have also come across a suggestion that Ingersoll "Radiolite" wrist watches were issued to British tank crews at the battle of the Somme in September 1916, but so far as I have been able to ascertain, the Ingersoll watches issued to these tank crews were pocket watches. If you can add anything to this, please get in touch.

Canadians advancing on Vimy Ridge, April 1917 As the war progressed and the techniques of warefare developed, the role of the wrist watch changed from being a convenience, to a life or death requirement when the "creeping" or "walking" barrage was introduced to protect advancing troops. A creeping barrage involved artillery fire moving forward in stages, so that the shells were falling just ahead of the advancing infantry. First used at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, it was soon appreciated how important it was for the attacking troops to follow the barrage closely, "leaning on the barrage", not allowing time for the defenders to emerge from their dug out shelters. This strategy required precise timing by both the heavy artillery and the infantry. Failure to achieve this would result in the artillery killing their own soldiers, and there was no opportunity to stop during the advance to fish out a pocket watch. The creeping barrage was used to great effect in the Canadian success at Vimy Ridge in April 1917.

Shrapnel Guards

To protect the delicate glass crystal of the wristwatch, many manufacturers offered shrapnel guards made of pierced metal. These slipped onto the wrist strap, and the piercing allowed the wearer to read the time through the holes.

Public Acceptance As the war progressed, the public became used to seeing battle hardened military veterans coming home on leave from active service still wearing their wristwatches. After the war was over, thousands of veterans were demobilised and went back to civilan life. Of course they continued to wear the wrist watch that had served them faithfully and survived the terrible conflict with them. Seeing these battle hardened veterans wearing their wrist watches changed the public perception that wearing a wristwatch was not manly, and sales of wrist watches to the man-in-the-street started to take off. By 1930 sales of wristwatches had overtaken those of pocket watches. In 1937, at the Paris International Exhibition, one commentator wrote "Who would have thought only a few years ago, that the wristwatch would one day be presented in so many forms, and in such variety?"

1915 Electa Watch with fixed wire lugs Anatomy of a Trench Watch The easiest way for a manufacturer to satisfy the demand for wristwatches was to add small loops of wire, called lugs, to an existing design of pocket watch. Pocket watches called "Hunters," because they had a hinged metal cover to protect the crystal during rough wear, already had the dial arranged with the winding stem at 3 O'Clock and the seconds dial at 6 O'Clock, so it was a simple matter to convert such movements to wristwatches by putting them into a plain case with simple loops of wire, called fixed wire lugs, to take a leather wrist strap.

Pictured left is one such watch by the Swiss company Gallet et Cie., who made watches with the brand name Electa. This watch exhibits many of the typical features of a trench watch: You can see the fixed wire lugs which give this type of watch one of its names, wire lug. They are just simple loops of wire soldered to the sides of the case. In addition to the fixed wire lugs, which in this case take a 12mm strap, the dial has " railway" style outline numerals, intended to take luminous paint which has long since worn away or been removed; the hands are "cathedral" style, like a leaded stained glass window, alternatively referred to as "poire - squelette" (pronounce " skelette"); there is a subsidiary second hand at 6 o'clock; and finally the large onion winding crown is very typical. These are often worn down so that the fine ribbing or fluting, which is so well preserved on this one, has disappeared.

The watch is in a silver case of the "Borgel Patent" design, hallmarked with the London import mark, and the date mark for 1915. The Borgel case was an early attempt to make wrist watches resistant to dust and moisture, and it is a one piece case, where the movement and bezel are mounted on a threaded ring which screws into the case from the front. The winding stem is fitted with a spring which allows it to be withdrawn by pulling out the crown so that the movement can be screwed in, and the method of setting the hands is unusual. Normally the crown winds the spring as usual, but when the pin or nail just below the crown is pressed in, the crown then moves the hands. You can see another example of a Borgel cased watch in the Goldsmiths Company advert above, which shows the movement of the central watch in its screwed carrier ring and the case clearly. The two watches below that one also show the pin-set detail to the right of the stem.

Franรงois Borgel's Marque de Fabrique The case of my watch is signed with an FB cartouche like the one shown to the right. Because I knew that Franรงois Borgel had died in 1912, I initially was lead to believe that this was the mark of Francis Baumgartner of Geneva, apparently a well known case maker for Patek Phillipe and other high quality watches of the era who is said to have gone on to develop Borgel's design, and eventually contribute to the development of the Rolex Oyster. But this is an error due to assuming that FB means Francis Baumgartner, and I now know that this cartouche does in fact belong to Franรงois Borgel having been registered by him as his "marque de fabrique", or trademark, in March 1887, and that manufacture of Borgel cases continued after the death of M. Borgel, initially under the direction of his daughter Louisa and later by Taubert & Fils. You can read more about this on my Borgel page.

The case is also marked "A路G路R", which refers to Arthur George Rendell of Clerkenwell Road, London who were importers of Swiss watches from 1907. You can read more about case marks on my Case Marks page.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments, then please drop me a line at David.Boettcher@talktalk.net You don't need to copy the email address, just click on it. I look forward to hearing from you!

Regards - David

Copyright 漏 Eur. Ing. David Boettcher BSc CEng MIET 2006 - 2010