Watch
A watch is a timepiece carried or worn by a person. It is designed to maintain a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is worn around the wrist, attached by a watch strap or another type of bracelet, including metal bands or leather straps. A pocket watch is carried in a pocket, often attached to a chain. A stopwatch is a type of watch that measures intervals of time.
During most of their history, beginning in the 16th century, watches were mechanical devices, driven by clockwork, powered by winding a mainspring, and keeping time with an oscillating balance wheel. These are known as mechanical watches. In the 1960s the electronic quartz watch was invented, powered by a battery and keeping time with a vibrating quartz crystal. By the 1980s it had taken over most of the watch market, in what became known as the quartz revolution. In the 2010s, smartwatches emerged, small wrist-worn computers with touchscreens and with functions that go far beyond timekeeping.
Modern watches often display the day, date, month, and year. Mechanical watches may have extra features such as moon-phase displays and different types of tourbillon. Quartz watches often include timers, chronographs, and alarm functions. Smartwatches and more complicated electronic watches may even incorporate calculators, GPS and Bluetooth technology or have heart-rate monitoring capabilities, and some use radio clock technology to regularly correct the time.
Most watches used mainly for timekeeping have quartz movements. But expensive collectible watches, valued more for their elaborate craftsmanship, aesthetic appeal, and glamorous design than for timekeeping, often have traditional mechanical movements, despite being less accurate and more expensive than their electronic counterparts. As of 2019, the most expensive watch ever sold at auction was the Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime for US$31.2 million.
History
Origins
The first timepieces to be worn were made in the 16th century in the German cities of Nuremberg and Augsburg, and these were transitional in size between clocks and watches. Nuremberg clockmaker Peter Henlein is often credited as the inventor of the watch. However, other German clockmakers were creating miniature timepieces during this period, and there is no evidence Henlein was the first.Watches were not widely worn in pockets until the 17th century. One account suggests that the word "watch" came from the Old English word woecce – which meant "watchman" – because town watchmen used the technology to keep track of their shifts at work. Another says that the term came from 17th-century sailors, who used the new mechanisms to time the length of their shipboard watches.
Development
A rise in accuracy occurred in 1657 with the addition of the balance spring to the balance wheel, an invention disputed both at the time and ever since between Robert Hooke and Christiaan Huygens. This innovation significantly improved the accuracy of watches, reducing errors from several hours a day to approximately 10 minutes per day, which led to the introduction of the minute hand on watch faces in Britain around 1680 and in France by 1700.The increased accuracy of the balance wheel focused attention on errors caused by other parts of the movement, igniting a two-century wave of watchmaking innovation. The first thing to be improved was the escapement. The verge escapement was replaced in quality watches by the cylinder escapement, invented by Thomas Tompion in 1695 and further developed by George Graham in the 1720s. Improvements in manufacturing – such as the tooth-cutting machine devised by Robert Hooke – allowed some increase in the volume of watch production, although finishing and assembling was still done by hand until well into the 19th century.
A major cause of error in balance-wheel timepieces, caused by changes in elasticity of the balance spring from temperature changes, was solved by the bimetallic temperature-compensated balance wheel invented in 1765 by Pierre Le Roy and improved by Thomas Earnshaw. The lever escapement, the single most important technological breakthrough, though invented by Thomas Mudge in 1754 and improved by Josiah Emery in 1785, only gradually came into use from about 1800 onwards, chiefly in Britain.
The British predominated in watch manufacture for much of the 17th and 18th centuries, but maintained a system of production that was geared towards high-quality products for the élite. The British Watch Company modernized clock manufacture with mass-production techniques and the application of duplicating tools and machinery in 1843. In the United States, Aaron Lufkin Dennison started a factory in 1851 in Massachusetts that used interchangeable parts, and by 1861 a successful enterprise operated, incorporated as the Waltham Watch Company.
Keyless (crown) winding
Efforts to eliminate the separate winding key led to multiple keyless systems in the 19th century. In Britain, Thomas Prest patented a mechanism to wind a watch by the pendant in 1820.In 1844 Adolphe Nicole patented a widely adopted keyless work in London ; British Museum notes record that E. J. Dent & Co. acquired rights to Nicole’s system around 1846, and many mid-century keyless watches signed “Dent” use the Nicole work. Early Dent keyless pieces from the 1840s are documented at auction.
In France and Switzerland, Jean-Adrien Philippe presented his crown-winding and setting mechanism in 1842, and Charles-Antoine LeCoultre patented a keyless system with a rocking bar and side push-button in 1847.
See also: Dent, Edward John Dent.
Wristwatches
The concept of the wristwatch goes back to the production of the very earliest watches in the 16th century. In 1571, Elizabeth I of England received a wristwatch, described as an "armed watch", from Robert Dudley. 17th century French mathematician Blaise Pascal is said to have worn a watch on his left-wrist. The oldest surviving wristwatch is one made in 1806, and given to Joséphine de Beauharnais. From the beginning, wristwatches were almost exclusively worn by women – men used pocket watches up until the early 20th century. In 1810, the watch-maker Abraham-Louis Breguet made a wristwatch for the Queen of Naples. The first Swiss wristwatch was made in the year 1868 by the Swiss watch-maker Patek Philippe for Countess Koscowicz of Hungary.Wristwatches were first worn by military men towards the end of the 19th century, having increasingly recognized the importance of synchronizing maneuvers during war without potentially revealing plans to the enemy through signaling. The Garstin Company of London patented a "Watch Wristlet" design in 1893, but probably produced similar designs from the 1880s. Officers in the British Army began using wristwatches during colonial military campaigns in the 1880s, such as during the Anglo-Burma War of 1885. During the First Boer War of 1880–1881, the importance of coordinating troop movements and synchronizing attacks against highly mobile Boer insurgents became paramount, and the use of wristwatches subsequently became widespread among the officer class. The company Mappin & Webb began production of their successful "campaign watch" for soldiers during the campaign in the Sudan in 1898 and accelerated production for the Second Boer War of 1899–1902 a few years later. In continental Europe, Girard-Perregaux and other Swiss watchmakers began supplying German naval officers with wristwatches in about 1880.
Early models were essentially standard pocket-watches fitted to a leather strap, but by the early 20th century, manufacturers began producing purpose-built wristwatches. The Swiss company Dimier Frères & Cie patented a wristwatch design with the now standard wire lugs in 1903. In 1904, Louis Cartier produced a wristwatch to allow his friend Alberto Santos-Dumont to check flight performance in his airship while keeping both hands on the controls as this proved difficult with a pocket watch. Cartier still markets a line of Santos-Dumont watches and sunglasses.
In 1905, Hans Wilsdorf moved to London, and set up his own business, Wilsdorf & Davis, with his brother-in-law Alfred Davis, providing quality timepieces at affordable prices; the company became Rolex in 1915. Wilsdorf was an early convert to the wristwatch, and contracted the Swiss firm Aegler to produce a line of wristwatches.
The impact of the First World War of 1914–1918 dramatically shifted public perceptions on the propriety of the man's wristwatch and opened up a mass market in the postwar era. The creeping barrage artillery tactic, developed during the war, required precise synchronization between the artillery gunners and the infantry advancing behind the barrage. Service watches produced during the war were specially designed for the rigors of trench warfare, with luminous dials and unbreakable glass. The UK War Office began issuing wristwatches to combatants from 1917. By the end of the war, almost all enlisted men wore a wristwatch, and after they were demobilized, the fashion soon caught on: the British Horological Journal wrote in 1917, that "the wristlet watch was little used by the sterner sex before the war, but now is seen on the wrist of nearly every man in uniform and of many men in civilian attire." By 1930, Switzerland exported as many pocket watches as wristwatches, and by 1934, the amount of exported Swiss wristwatches nearly doubled that of pocket watches.