chronometer watch;
watch-case;
watch-chain;
watch-key;
tourbillon watch
- Museum number
- 1991,0406.1
- Description
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GOLD CASED POCKET CHRONOMETER WITH DANIELS INDEPENDENT DOUBLE-WHEEL ESCAPEMENT.
:
Movement with two separate jewelled gear-trains driven by twin going-barrels; Daniels independent double-wheel escapement with two escape-wheels operating with common double-beat pivoted detent; stainless-steel balance and free-spring elinvar balance-spring with inner and outer terminal curves.
Silver engine-turned dial with subsidiary seconds 10-60 at the top and hours and minutes I-XII below.
Gold hands in case band; key-operated zeroing mechanism for the seconds hand.
18 carat gold, engine-turned open-faced case.
Complete with original gold fob-chain and gold and steel key.
- Production date
- 1976
- Dimensions
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Diameter: 62 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Text from 'Watches', by David Thompson, London, 2008, p. 160-161.
George Daniels
GOLD CASED WATCH WITH DANIELS DOUBLE-WHEEL ESCAPEMENT
LONDON, 1976
SIGNED: 'DANIELS LONDON'
It is rarely the case that a machine founded solely on mechanical principles could survive the introduction of a new electronic version. Who today would dream of using an old handle-pull adding machine when a perfectly reliable pocket calculator can be bought for next to nothing? In the world of watchmaking one man has certainly proved such a theory wrong by making a series of watches that are recognized as inspirational works and sought after by owners and collectors all over the world. The name of George Daniels is known throughout the horological world as a paragon of excellence in the field of watchmaking.
In his earlier life Daniels was a watch repairer and restorer working in London for high street watch retailers and jewellers. Through his interest in vintage sports cars, Daniels met Cecil (Sam) Clutton, a founder member of both the Antiquarian Horological Society and the Vintage Sports Car Club, and also a leading expert on church organs. This meeting with a collector of fine horology led Daniels first to explore the field of antiquarian horology and then to the idea of making watches to his own design. These would not simply be replicas of antiquarian pieces but rather individually designed pieces made by Daniels, of which there would be no equivalent to be found anywhere.
Daniels's first watch was begun in 1968 and appropriately was delivered to his friend and fellow horologist Clutton the following year. It has features in its design that are now immediately recognizable as Daniels's own concepts. The watch has twin mainsprings and a spring-detent escapement mounted in a tourbillon carriage of Daniels's design. This watch was to be the first of a series of individually made pieces fulfilling his philosophy that each watch should be "historic, intellectual, technical, aesthetic, amusing and useful".
In 1974, as a commission from the renowned horological collector Seth Atwood, Daniels set to work on a new form of watch in which there would be two independent gear trains delivering a direct impulse to a single balance, in this way providing a more constant impulse than is possible using conventional escapements. The watch was completed and delivered in 1976 and its design was inevitably attractive to Cecil Clutton who asked Daniels to make a second example. In 1976 the watch was completed and exchanged for Clutton's first Daniels watch. It was the watch seen here that Clutton then owned for the rest of his life and which he bequeathed to the British Museum in 1991. Always interested in the performance of watches, Clutton at one time wore the watch every day for a period of thirty days which included a trip to Tokyo, and found that it kept time to within a second, an incredible level of accuracy.
The watch has an engine-turned gold case, with a 'Daniels' pendant and bow, a silver engine-turned dial with subsidiary seconds at the top and a device operated from the case band which zeroes the seconds hand when the hands are being set to the correct time. To finish off the watch in elegant style, there is a gold double-link graduated chain attached to which is a finely made double-ended key for winding and hand-setting. To watch the escapement in action is undoubtedly pleasing but to listen to it adds another delightful dimension.
- Location
- On display (G39/dc14/no84)
- Exhibition history
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Exhibited:
2006 10 Jul-28 Jul, London, Sotheby's, George Daniels Retrospective
1991, London, The British Museum, Collecting the Twentieth Century
- Condition
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Latest: 2 (21 March 2024)
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1 (2016)
- Acquisition date
- 1991
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1991,0406.1
