Blog: English Watchmaking

Date: 19 October 2021

I make additions and corrections to this web site frequently, but because they are buried somewhere on one of the pages the changes are not very noticeable. I decided to create this blog to highlight new material. Here below you will find part of one of the pages that is either completely new or I have recently changed or added to significantly.

The sections reproduced below are from my page about English Watchmaking.

Names: Don't assume that a name engraved onto the movement of an English watch indicates who made it; usually it doesn't. English watchmakers usually didn't sell directly to the public. They sold watches to high street retailers, who sold them to the public. Retailers didn't want anyone's name other than their own on the watches that they sold. English watchmakers usually quite small operations, so the retailer had the stronger hand. If one watchmaker didn't want to put the retailer's name on the watches he made, the retailer could go to another who would. The practice in Britain until the mid-1920s was that it was the retailer's name that was put onto watches.

If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to get in touch via my Contact Me page.

Division of Labour

Division of labour means the assignment of different parts of a manufacturing process or task to different people in order to improve efficiency. The watch industry was one of the first to make extensive use of division of labour, to breakdown the manufacture of a watch into steps that could be carried out efficiently.

Workmen (it was almost invariably men) trained for years on how to make a single part, and then made that part over and over again, every day for years on end. In this way they got very good and very quick at it, but almost invariably they couldn't make any of the other parts of a watch. For example; one person would fit jewel holes and do nothing else, and another person would attach and shape the balance spring and do nothing else. These two people were utterly incapable of doing each other's work.

Most workers were self employed, or employed only a handful of apprentices and workers, and tools were hand held, and usually hand or foot powered. There were at least a dozen major branches and each specialism was in turn further subdivided. The industry was well described by Aaron Dennison, the father of the American watch industry, in the following quote, but the structure of the English watch industry remained on the same lines from the late seventeenth century until the eve of World War One and the same account could have been made at any time from then:

The party setting up as a manufacturer of watches bought his Lancashire movements - conglomeration of rough materials - and gave them out to A, B, C, D, to have them finished. A, B, C, and D gave out the job of pivoting certain wheels of the train to E, certain other parts to F, and the fusee cutting to G. Dial-making, jewelling, gilding, motioning, etc. to others, down almost the entire length of the alphabet; ...

In the section of Rees's Cyclopaedia devoted to Watches and Chronometers, published in 1819-1820, William Pearson, the author of the section, listed thirty four different principal crafts that were involved in the process of making a watch. Almost all of these were further subdivided, many into a large number of subdivisions.

The principal divisions of the craft were the making of the rough movement by a movement maker and the subsequent “finishing” of this movement by a watchmaker. Other important subsidiary components made by separate specialists were the watch case, the enamel dial and the hands. The following extract is from Volume 39 of Rees's Cyclopaedia, edited slightly for clarity.

The best watch-movements are made at Prescot, in Lancashire, by persons called movement-makers, who furnish the movement complete to the London watch-makers. The following is a list of the principal workmen employed in manufacturing a movement, previously to its coming into the hands of the London watch-maker.

The frame-maker, who makes the frame; that is to say, the two plates, the bar, and the potence.
The pillar-maker, who turns the pillars, and makes the stud for the stop-work.
The cock-maker, who makes the cock and the stop-work.
The barrel and fusee-maker, who makes the barrel, great wheel, fusee, and their component parts.
The going fusee-maker, who makes the going fusee (maintaining power).
The centre wheel and pinion-maker, who makes the same.
The small pinion-maker, who makes from pinion wire the pinions of the third, fourth, and escapement wheels; and in the case of repeaters, the pinions of the repeating train.
The small wheel-maker, who makes the third and fourth wheels, and the wheels of the repeating train for repeating movements, and rivets them to their pinions.
The wheel-cutter, who cuts the wheels.
The verge-maker, who makes the verge of vertical watches.
The movement-finisher, who turns the wheels of a proper size previously to their being cut, forwards them to and receives them from the wheel-cutter, examines all the parts as they are made, to see that they are as they should be ; and finally completes the movement, and puts it together.
The balance-maker, who makes the balance of steel or brass.
The pinion wire-drawer who draws the pinion-wire.

The movement, in the state in which it is sent to the London watch-maker, consists of the frame, composed of two plates, connected together by four or five pillars, as the case may be, which pillars are riveted to one of the plates called the pillar-plate ; the wheels, consisting the great wheel attached to the fusee, the second or centre wheel, the third and fourth wheels, the fusee and barrel, potence and stop-work, which latter are attached to the upper plate, (so called in, contra-distinction to the pillar-plate,) but the potence screwed to it is between the plates; and lastly, the cock screwed to the outside of the upper plate.

The following is a list of the principal workmen employed on a watch to complete it from the state in which the movement is received from Prescot.

The slide-maker, who makes the slide.
The jeweller, who jewels the cock and potence, and, in a more forward state of the watch, any other holes that are required to be jewelled.
The motion-maker, who makes the motion-wheels and pinions and the brass edge; and, after the case is made, joints and locks the watch into the case. (The brass edge separates the dial from the pillar plate and forms a recess that houses the motion work.)
The wheel-cutter, who cuts the motion-wheels for the motion-maker.
The cap-maker, who makes the cap.
The dial-plate maker, who makes the dial.
The painter, who paints the dial.
The case-maker, who makes the case.
The joint-finisher, who finishes the joint of the case.
The pendant-maker, who makes the pendant.
The engraver who engraves the name on the upper plate; and also engraves the cock and slide, or index, as the case may be.
The piercer, who pierces the cock and slide.
The escapement-maker, who makes the horizontal, duplex, or detached escapements; but the escapement of a vertical watch is made by the finisher.
The spring-maker, who makes the mainspring.
The chain-maker, who makes the fusee chain.
The finisher, who completes the watch, and makes the balance spring, and adjusts it.
The gilder, who gilds the watch.
The fusee-cutter, who cuts the fusee to receive the chain.
The hand-maker, who makes the hands.
The glass-maker, who makes the glass.
The wire-drawer, who draws the wire for the balance springs.

The springs of a hunting-case are made by a separate workman called a secret spring-maker. Single cases (not hunting-cases) are frequently made to open with springs; pairs of cases (the old-fashioned box and case) are sprung, lined, and polished by a workman called a springer and liner; the better description of single cases and hunting-cases are polished by a person simply called the polisher: this is sometimes done by women, particularly by the wives of some of the case makers; and this is the only branch of the trade, probably, in which women are employed in this country.

Many of these tasks involved the work of more than one person, or were further subdivided, especially as more machinery was introduced into the process. For example, the pillar plate had numerous holes bored through it and sunk into it, which would be done by different operators on separate machines.

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Watchmaking in 1893

In the Horological Journal of April 1894 are the questions for the 1893 City and Guilds Institute examinations in watch and clock making, to which Mr T D Wright of the BHI added such answers as appeared likely to satisfy the Examiner. One of Mr Wright's answers gives an insight into the processes of English watchmaking that were very old fashioned by 1893. Although some English manufacturers had adopted mass production by automatic machinery before 1893, there were still many small businesses where the traditional methods of turning a rough moment into a finished watch by the out-work of individual specialists which Mr Wright describes were still being practised.

Question 4. Enumerate the successive stages in the “manufacture” of a key-winding ¾-plate watch. State them in the order in which they would be most conveniently accomplished.

The stages listed by Mr Wright in his specimen answer below are those carried out by the “watch maker” after the rough movement was received from the movement maker. These may be compared with the specialist occupations listed above from Rees's Cyclopaedia, published more than 70 years earlier.

Mr Wright's specimen answer to question 4. The rough movement is examined to see that all the necessary parts are complete and correct, the [serial] number given to it stamped on the plates and cock; the holes in the pillar plate for the dial feet are drilled (if not already made by the movement maker) in such positions that the feet shall not be in the way of other pieces ; the dial is then made to fit the pillar plate; the balance cock is then lowered, if necessary, to the proper height, and the balance holes are jewelled. In the meantime the balance may be made, a suitable pair of pallets and escape wheel selected, and the escape pinion carefully sectored to the fourth wheel to see that it is of a proper size. These parts are now given to the escapement maker, together with the pillar plate, cocks, bars, and dial. He first marks the position of the escape wheel, noting particularly the correct position of the seconds hole, and has the escape wheel holes jewelled. He then makes the escapement and has the pallets holes jewelled. The finished escapement is now removed from the frame and carefully placed in a separate box, and the two plates, with balance cock and dial, are given to the case maker. When the case is made, the frame and case are given to the motion maker, who supplies and plants the motion wheels and set-hand arbor, and fixes the movement to the case, with a bolt and joint if a double bottom case, with a joint and pin if a dome case. While the motion maker is doing this the index may be made to the balance cock and the mainspring made to the barrel, and the movement is now ready for the finisher, whose duties are more numerous than any of his predecessors. He has to thin and true the train wheels, have them gilt or polish them, pivot and finish the pinions, run them in, i.e. plant them in their proper positions, pivot and finish the fusee, have it cut and fit the chain, fit the mainspring and do the barrel work, finish and fit the stop work, make the balance-spring-stud and collet, drill and finish the index, polish the bolt, motion wheels, set square and cannon-pinion ; harden, temper, and polish all the screws ; have any jewelling done that is required for the train wheels, have the engraving done and get all the brass work gilt. In the meantime the case can be sprung and polished, and, if necessary, engine turned or engraved; if the watch has a gold dial this can also be engraved. All the parts are now given to the examiner, who goes carefully through all the work that has been done, making the final corrections that are always necessary to bring the separate processes into harmonious adjustment, fits the hands, shortens and polishes the squares, opens the winding holes in case, fixes the movement in the case, poises the balance, applies the balance spring, regulates the watch, and gives all those final touches required before the watch is ready for the wearer's pocket.

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