In my last post, I pointed out that some inventors were not quite as anonymous as we think they were - and more importantly, that we shouldn’t use examples of that supposed anonymity to make bold claims about inventors (i.e. that they were humble tinkerers).

Another example of this, again from Cormac O’Grada’s review of Margaret Jacob’s book, is watch-making:

Yet even focusing on [inventors of modest, artisanal origins] ignores the incremental low-tech, and anonymous nature of much technological change in this era. During the eighteenth century, for example, watchmaking benefited from no major technological breakthroughs apart from the dead-beat escapement (c. 1715) and the invention of cast steel (c. 1740). Yet productivity growth was continuous and significant.  

Once again, my inventor database comes in handy. The dead-beat escapement and cast steel were certainly not the only major breakthroughs in watch-making in the period. Below is an outline of just some of the individuals who improved watches so considerably in the period, not even including the numerous other clockmakers, improvers of relevant tools and materials, and some foreign watchmakers who would have influenced Britain’s industry at the time, but with whom I am less familiar. 

In other words, the following extensive description is by no means exhaustive, and I think underscores just how much innovation was taking place in watchmaking, as well as how much we actually know about these supposedly anonymous tinkerers.

One cannot start the story of watch-making without mentioning the polymath Robert Hooke (perhaps better known for Hooke’s law, and as a famed microscopist for discovering and coining ‘cells’ in biology). It was Hooke who invented the balance spring watch, allegedly in 1658, but ultimately only constructed according to his instructions in 1675 for Charles II. This was a response to the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens (also one of the inventors of the pendulum in 1656), who independently invented the balance spring watch in 1675. To establish priority, Hooke cheekily had it engraved: “Robert Hooke inven. 1658. T. Tompion fecit, 1675”.  Like the pendulum to the clock, the balance spring was a leap in accuracy so great that it effectively started the watch-making industry.

Hooke also designed a tooth cutter for watches, increasing the speed and accuracy with which they could be made. Crucially, however, he also inspired Thomas Tompion, sometimes known as the “father of English watchmaking”. Tompion was the instrument maker employed to make Hooke’s balance spring in 1675, and he soon started making them with ever-increasing efficiency and accuracy. He initiated a rudimentary programme of mass production and standardisation, including serial numbering, making 100-150 watches per year by the 1680s: between 1671 and 1713 he produced around 800 clocks and 5000 watches.

He also produced “Tompion’s regulation”, the regulating device to go with the balance spring, as well as one of the first known dead-beat escapements, for a clock commissioned by the mathematician Sir Jonas Moore in 1675. 

Meanwhile, however, the Catholic missionary Edward Barlow (alias Booth) had developed a rack-and-snail mechanism for clocks, which he then applied to watches to produce the repeating watch. His claim to inventing the repeating movement was disputed by Daniel Quare, and James II ordered them both to make examples, to be tested against one another in 1687. Quare ultimately won the patent, as his model required only one button to be pressed, instead of two; but Tompion, having built Barlow’s version, was producing a standardised retail model by 1689. 

Quare was another early pioneer of mass-production, and from around 1680 started numbering his time-pieces in series: until his death in 1724, he produced some 1,350 repeating watches, clock watches and alarm watches, as well as 5,000 other clocks.

From 1693, Newton’s disciple Nicolas Fatio de Duillier began an association with the watchmakers Peter and Jacob Debaufre, exhibiting their pendulum watch with a spring to the Royal Society that year. Together, they pioneered the drilling of precious stones, particularly rubies, and their application to watches to improve accuracy, for which Fatio took a patent in 1704. By around 1710, Tompion and Quare were also using diamond endstones for balance-pivots, to reduce friction. 

Early watches were pierced to allow the sound of bells to escape, but this allowed dust and fluff to get in, clogging them up. Tompion introduced a protective ring, and then a balance-cock dust cap by 1704. Tompion’s apprentice, nephew and inheritor George Graham, as well as Quare, had by 1714 combined these two inventions into an improved dust cap. In 1730, Graham dispensed with the need for pierced cases entirely, replacing them with a ‘dumb repeat’, by which small hammers struck the inside of the dust cap itself, or small blocks, instead of a bell.

After inheriting Tompion’s workshop, Graham’s production rate fell, to only about 50 watches per year, and 12 repeating watches (down from 17). However, this was largely down to his concentration on producing other scientific instruments, and he implemented a whole series of other accuracy-improving and cost-reducing inventions. 

In 1718, he was perhaps the first watchmaker to introduce centre-second hands, as well as stop mechanisms (i.e. for stopwatches). From around 1728, Graham was one of the first to supply watches in single cases, to reduce cost. He also introduced a new repeating mechanism, potentially invented by an employee named Matthew Stodgen. Graham also catered some improvements to higher-end, quality watches, for example in 1736 being among the first to introduce white enamel dials.

In 1695, Barlow and Tompion had patented a horizontal escape wheel, later known as a virgule, which allowed them to eliminate the need for other wheels in the mechanism. However, they failed to exploit this fully, and in 1726 Graham developed the cylinder escapement as an alternative. 

One should also not forget the marine chronometer (essentially a rather large but remarkably accurate watch), invented by John Harrison to allow ships to measure their longitude despite changes to temperature, pressure and the movement of the ship itself. The initial designs for Harrison’s chronometer (known as H1, H2, H3) focused on making an accurate clock. But in 1753, Harrison commissioned a pocket watch from John Jefferys with a bimetallic strip (to compensate for changes in temperature, much like strips found in modern thermostats) and maintaining power. By 1760, Harrison had incorporated elements of the design into H4.

It fell to others, however, to make the marine chronometer cheaper. The Board of Longitude commissioned Larcum Kendall, who had been apprenticed to Jefferys, to produce a copy of H4, known as K1, in 1769, but at the huge cost of £450. He was then asked to make it cheaper. K2, produced in 1771, cost £200 - still a substantial sum, while also compromising its accuracy. But K2 achieved further fame when it was used by Captain Bligh after he was ejected by the mutiny on The Bounty, to navigate his way across 3,500 nautical miles to safety and eventually bring the mutineers to justice. A third attempt at simplification in 1774, K3, cost £100, and accompanied Captain Cook on his last, fatal voyage.

John Arnold, who actually coined the word “chronometer” (with the hydrologist Alexander Dalrymple), from 1767 started to manufacture chronometers, and from 1785 was mass-producing them at a factory. In 1775 he patented a helical spring that could compensate for temperature, which he improved upon still further, culminating in a 1782 patent.

Another watchmaker, Thomas Earnshaw also began to apply himself to improving the chronometer from 1780. In around 1782 he developed a spring detent escapement mechanism, which radically simplified and cheapened it, although this caused a priority dispute with Arnold. Earnshaw alleged that he had divulged the design to some friends of Arnold’s, who having heard about it had then promptly included it in his 1782 patent. Earnshaw found a sponsor, Thomas Wright, for his own patent in 1783.

Graham’s apprentice, Thomas Mudge also worked on improving the accuracy and reducing the cost of Harrison’s chronometer from 1776. He also designed a temperature-compensating watch for the famous civil engineer John Smeaton, and implemented a constant force escapement designed and commissioned by the Swiss astronomer Johan Jacob Huber. However, his major breakthrough was the development of the detached lever escapement in the 1750s, which hugely improved accuracy, and was an essential feature of most watches until the dawn of quartz technology in the 1970s.

In the 1780s, the Swiss-born immigrant clockmaker, Josiah Emery, combined both Mudge’s lever escapement and Arnold’s compensation balance to produce uniquely accurate (albeit expensive, at about £100-£150) watches. Emery also developed a new alloy for the temperature-compensating parts of Mudge’s designs.

Meanwhile in the 1750s and 1760s, the ingenious John-Joseph Merlin was producing a number of specialised watches and clocks, as well as intricate automata for the museum of James Cox, who himself exported timepieces to the Far East in partnership with his son. As an aside, one of Merlin’s automata was fondly remembered and then later bought by Charles Babbage, the inventor of the precursors to the calculator and computer, and may have inspired him to apply himself to innovative pursuits.

In 1791, Peter Litherland patented a rack escapement, and its elements were incorporated to improve Mudge’s detached lever escapement by Edward Massey junior. Massey’s version, developed from about 1812, could be produced cheaply and in large quantities; and from around 1820 incorporated a “draw” to reduce intermittent friction that could be caused from moving the watch around while carrying it. Massey was also responsible for developing keyless winding mechanisms, adjustable temperature-compensating curbs, and other forms of escapement.

Finally, at least in my database, the schoolteacher John Hessey Abraham developed a method of neutralising magnets in watches in 1826.

From the above, we can see that there was a tremendous number of known inventors working on improving and cheapening watches. This underscores just how much this was not an “anonymous” industry characterised solely by artisanal tinkerers. For a start, Hooke, Huygens Fatio de Duillier, Barlow, and Abraham were all either largely professional natural philosophers (i.e. scientists) or amateurs. Furthermore, many of the artisans were intricately connected with scientific figures of the time - for example, many of the improvers of the chronometer had extensive contact with the various Astronomers Royal. 

This is not to say that Jacob was right all along and that O’Grada is wrong - but to point out that the debate as to whether the inventions of the Industrial Revolution were carried out by artisanal tinkerers or Enlightenment improvers cannot be settled with reference to watch-making. The reality is, perhaps, that it involved a bit of both (something the current thesis chapter I’m working on, when published, will hopefully clarify).

Above all, however, it underscores just how much the Industrial Revolution was not all about cotton, coal, iron and steam. Instead, nearly all industries of the time were undergoing rapid improvement, and they should be celebrated accordingly.