The First Men's Wristwatches

Copyright © David Boettcher 2005 - 2023 all rights reserved.

By the end of the nineteenth century, watch manufacturers had noted some demand for men's wristwatches, principally from military men, and started producing purpose made designs.

These wristwatches used existing movements that had originally been designed for small savonnette (hunter) pocket watches, placed into open face cases that had loops of wire called "wire lugs" soldered onto the sides of the case to take a leather strap. These were purpose made wristwatches for men; the often told story that the first men's wristwatches were converted ladies' fob watches is wrong, as explained at Converted Wristwatches.

Before the Great War civilian men did not usually wear wristwatches, but a number of manufacturers were making them, principally for the military but also for horse riders, balloonists and automobilists. I have men's wristwatches made by Omega in 1905, IWC in 1906 and Longines in 1909. Because these were, in the main, purchased by military officers, they were not seen by the wider population before the Great War, which brought officer's wristwatches to wider attention.

The picture here shows one of these early wire lug wristwatches, and you can see how simple the fixed wire lugs that take the strap are. No wonder Jaquet and Chapuis poked fun at the watch manufacturers who claim to have "invented" the wristwatch. However, in 1903 Dimier Brothers did stake a claim to have invented this design, and many early wristwatches carry a stamp Déposé No. 9846 which proves that this claim was taken seriously at the time.

A wristwatch like this was not made by simply soldering wire lugs onto an existing pocket watch. The basic reason for the creation of the wristwatch was to make it easy and quick to read using only one hand. That meant that it should be open faced, but an open face Lépine pocket watch normally has the seconds sub-dial at 6 o'clock and the crown at 12 o'clock, which is where the strap needs to be attached. A Lépine movement can't simply be rotated to place the crown at 3 o'clock because that would put the seconds indication at 9 o'clock.

To create a true wristwatch like the one shown here, a savonnette movement, which would normally be used in a savonnette (hunter) case with a lid over the glass, has been put into a Lépine (open faced) case. This correctly places the winding crown at 3 o'clock and seconds sub-dial at 6 o'clock.

The case has been made slightly differently too, there is no long pendant tube for the bow and securing Albert chain. These were not complicated modifications for a manufacturer to bring together, but certainly not as simple as just soldering wire lugs onto an existing pocket watch. I touch on this further below, and explain it in more detail on my page about watch cases.

Although these early wristwatches were taken up in small numbers by automobilists and aviators in addition to military men, they didn't 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 the fashionable thing for men to wear. In fact, even when purpose made wristwatches were available, the leather wristlets that allowed a pocket watch to be worn on the wrist continued to sell in large numbers.

This all changed during the Great War (the First World War, WW1, of 1914 – 1918) when large numbers of men entered the armed forces and, in the trenches of the battlefields, they saw experienced and battle hardened officers wearing and using wristwatches. This changed the perception of wristwatches and many men wanted to own one themselves. As a result this early style of wristwatch with wire lugs became known as an "officer's watch", or more commonly a "trench watch".

Reactions in Switzerland, England and America

The Swiss watch industry benefited most from the new demand for wristwatches. English manufacturers had largely left the market for small watches to the Swiss and were not prepared with suitable size movements that could be produced in the large numbers required. American watchmakers were better prepared with small size movements. Waltham sold a lot of wristwatches in Britain during the war, as did Elgin did to a smaller extent. Back home in America though things were different. The US stayed out of the war until 1917 and the number of men who served in the war in Europe was a much smaller proportion of the American population than those from the European countries. Consequently the returning soldiers did not have the same impact on social norms in American and the wristwatch remained an unfashionable item in America into the 1920s.

English watchmakers were well behind the curve when it came to making small movements suitable for wristwatches. The hand craft methods used in England were not easily capable of producing the smaller size movements needed for ladies' pocket/fob watches, which were the ideal size for wristwatches. The English makers largely left the production of smaller sized movements and hence that part of the market to the Swiss, who had invested in machinery and modernised their watch production after a scare in 1876 when they found out at the Philadelphia International Exposition what the Americans were capable of doing with mechanised production, although only a few Swiss companies brought production completely into one integrated operation, Longines being one.

Machinery was better adapted than hand craft methods to making the smaller components needed for wristwatch sized movements, but it required a big financial investment in special purpose machines. The English watch industry was fragmented into many small companies and had been declining for many years and, with a few notable exceptions, English watch manufacturers simply did not have the organisation or capital to invest in integrated and highly mechanised factories. The Swiss however were better organised and adopted some aspects of the American methods of manufacture and successfully fought back and retained a large share of the market.

Consequently when the demand for wristwatches suddenly took off in the Great War, English manufacturers were unable to fulfil it and the Swiss and Americans swept the board. The one relatively large English manufacturer that could perhaps have competed with the Swiss and Americans for a slice of this market, Rotherhams of Coventry who had mechanised in the 1880s, were out of the watch trade during the war, instead manufacturing fuses for shells and other war material.

The very first watch that I serviced on a training course at the BHI was a pocket watch; not a particularly large one, but when I worked on my first wristwatch I was amazed at how much harder it was due to the difference in size and scale, and this helped me to understand what the English craft manufacturers came up against. Only Rotherhams were capable of producing wristwatch sized movements at a price that could come anywhere near the price of Swiss watches, although still considerably more expensive. English manufactured men's wristwatches from before WW2 were expensive when new and are RARE.

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Déposé No. 9846: Watches with Handles

In 1903 the Anglo-Swiss company Dimier Brothers registered a design of a wristwatch with fixed wire lugs and a leather strap. This is the earliest documented evidence I have seen of watches with wire lugs and one piece leather strap; the first purposely designed man's wristwatch, which during the Great War became known as the "trench" or "officers" watch.

Dimier Frères & Cie had offices in la Chaux-de-Fonds and London. As Dimier Brothers & Co., from 1868 were an important watch importing company in London, You can read more about the London company of Dimier Brothers on my Sponsors Marks page at Dimier Brothers & Co. .

Evidence for the involvement of the Dimier Brothers company in the early development of the wristwatch is the legend "Déposé No. 9846" (sometimes "DEPOSE 9846", or even DÉPOSÉ 9846) which is often seen on the back of very early wristwatches as shown here, sometimes with the Swiss Federal Cross symbol, sometimes without. Déposé is shorthand for Modèle Déposé, which is Swiss/French for "Registered Design".

An author's or designer's legal copyright exists for designs whether they are registered or not, but it can be difficult to prove without evidence of the date the design was created; hence, an entry in a register is a useful official record. NB: a "Registered Design" is not the same as a "Patent", which is something quite different.

The picture to the right here shows the official Swiss register entry for Modèle Déposé No. 9846. It is dated 29 July 1903. As you can see, the description is very short compared to that of a patent: it simply says "Montre à bracelet-courroie" or "Wristwatch with bracelet-belt" and shows a picture of the design. That's it; that is the full entry.

The exact translation of Montre à bracelet-courroie is important. A "montre" is a watch, "à" means with and "bracelet" is a bracelet, but a "courroie" is a belt. The addition of courroie or belt is clearly intended to distinguish this design from a "montre bracelet", a watch on a metal bracelet which ladies had been wearing for hundreds of years. So the specific design features being registered were the use of a leather wrist strap like a belt, and by implication the "anses", handles or wire lugs, that attach the watch case to the leather strap.

An interesting feature of the strap design is the flared centre section. This approximately covers the same area as the watch case. Since there is no description its purpose can only be guessed at. It could have been to prevent any part of the watch case from touching the wrist for some reason, perhaps concerns about allergies, or about perspiration tarnishing silver watch cases. Or, which I think more likely, it would not have been possible to register a design that was just a straight leather strap, because that would be too simple and obvious, so this more elaborate design was conceived just so that it could be registered. Once a registered design number had been secured, that fact could be used in advertising and to gain a hold over wristwatch manufacturers.

There is a second number in the picture of the Swiss Registered Design. This is N^o 405488, underneath the main block of text with the registration number 9846. I discovered that this is the number of a British Registered Design, a design that was formally registered by the British Board of Trade for the purposes of copyright protection, in much the same way as the Swiss/French Modèle Déposé discussed above. The picture here shows the entry in the register. This is the full entry, there is no text description. The watch shown mounted on the strap in the picture is crossed out to show that it is not part of the actual Registered Design.

This design was registered by the British Board of Trade in February 1903, six months before the Swiss register entry for Modèle Déposé No. 9846 in July 1903.

The period of copyright protection afforded by the British registration was initially five years. This was twice extended under the provisions of the Patents and Designs Act 1907 for two further periods of five years each, taking the period of protection up to February 1918.

RD 499803 buckle design

Watch straps with the same flared centre shape as the British and Swiss Registered Designs are sometimes seen with the British Registered Design number "No. 405488" stamped onto the leather strap, and with another British Registered Design number, "No. 499803", stamped on the buckle. Buckles stamped with this number are an unusual design with two centre bars instead of the more usual single bar.

The British Board of Trade records show that this unusual design of buckle was first registered in April 1907, but they don't show who the registrant was. However, the juxtaposition of the numbers 405488 on the leather strap and 499803 on the buckle, and then the number 405488 on the Swiss register entry for Modèle Déposé No. 9846, indicates that they were all the products of Dimier Brothers.

The Registered Design No. 499803 buckle is an unusual design with two centre bars and it fits onto the strap without being stitched into it. The Registered Design No. 405488 / No. 9846 shows a strap with a circular section the same size as the watch case in the centre, and there are only two ways such a strap could be fitted to a watch with fixed wire lugs, either the buckle would have to stitched to the strap after the strap had been fitted to the watch, or the buckle would have to be designed to fit to the strap without stitching, which is exactly what the Registered Design No. 499803 buckle does. The photograph here shows how it fits to the strap.

Why there was a four year gap between registering the design of the lugs and strap to registering the design of the buckle is a bit of a mystery. These straps and buckles do turn up occasionally, but I suspect that it was linked with the announcement shown below. My feeling is that when Dimier Brothers first registered the design of the watch strap in 1903 there were very few men's wristwatches being produced and so the documents lay on the shelf. But in 1907 the market for men's wristwatches with wire lugs was starting to accelerate and they realised that they could gain some control over it by reinterpreting what exactly it was that they had registered. The announcement shown in the next figure was published in La Fédération Horlogère Suisse in October 1907. It translates as

This announcement gives more details than appear to be recorded with the registered design. It is clear that the wire lugs ("anses" or handles) are designed to be curved (recourbées) or bent downwards, so that the lugs can be soldered to the middle part of the case and not interfere with the hinged opening back whilst making the path of the strap around the back of the watch case follow a natural curve. It's not rocket science, but someone had to think about it.

Judging from the very large number of early wristwatches that are stamped in their case backs with the legend "Déposé No. 9846", the claim that Dimier Brothers originated the design and the threat of action against anyone who didn't pay them royalties for making wristwatches with fixed wire must have been taken seriously by Swiss watch manufacturers at the time.

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E. J. Pearson and Sons

The company of E. J. Pearson and Sons, harness makers and saddlers at 275 and 277 St. John Street, London, had a long history, tracing their roots back to 1804. The company was taken over by Edward John Pearson in the 1880s. His sons Edward John junior and Alfred Edward also worked for the business.

Mr. Tucker, managing director of the firm of H. Williamson Ltd., had an interesting claim about the origin of the wristwatch. He told an interviewer: “During the Boer War we received a 12 size watch belonging to an officer in South Africa. He said he wanted to wear it on his wrist. I suggested putting loops on the case and sewing straps on to them. This was done, and we were struck with the idea and had it registered. It was some time before the idea took on, but eventually it became extremely popular.” Pearsons made the wrist strap to Mr. Tucker's order.

In August 1908 E. J. Pearson and Sons registered two designs of watch straps with the British Board of Trade. The purpose of registering a design was to provide protection for the "intellectual property" of the originator of the decorative or artistic elements of a design, preventing these from being copied or manufactured without permission. A registered design was given a unique number and this was usually marked on the articles and in adverts, often abbreviated as "Reg. Des." or just "RD".

Pearson Sponsor's Marks

In the early years of the wristwatch, E. J. Pearson and Sons became well known for making leather wrist straps. By the 1920s, Pearson were known as the largest maker of wristwatch straps in England . Some of their trade mark names for watch straps were “Victor”, “Simplex”, “Climax” and “Premier”, with the brand name “Pearmak” also being widely used.

The sponsor's mark P&Ss for Pearson & Sons was first entered at the London Assay Office by Alfred Edward Pearson on 3 November 1908 with two registered punches. The coincidence of this registration at the assay office and the two designs mentioned above being registered at the Board of Trade is interesting. It seems likely that watch straps were the first items that Pearsons had produced that needed gold or silver buckles and that this was the reason for creating the Pearson sponsor's mark. Two more punches were registered on 8 February 1909, a further two punches on 18 June 1910, and a final pair of punches on 26 February 1914.

Pearson and Dimier Brothers

On 27 August 1908 Pearsons registered two designs with the British Board of Trade a design for leather wristwatch straps. The Registered Design numbers were 529336 and 529337. Pearson marketed these straps under the names “Victor” and “Simplex” respectively.

Simplex RD 529337

The design of the Pearson 529337 Simplex strap was identical in plan view to the design registered in Switzerland in 1903 by Dimier Brothers as Modèle Déposé 9846in that it had a centre section beneath the watch case flaring out into a circle about the same size as the watch case. However, the Pearson design was significantly different in the way that it was attached to the watch (or vice-versa if you prefer).

In the Pearson design there were two layers of leather, one with the flared section and the other straight which formed the wrist strap. The flared section was stitched to the wrist strap at the buckle end. The opposite end of the flared section had a loop attached to it that the strap was passed through to hold the two pieces together. This is quite clearly seen in the image reproduced here from the Board of Trade archives, the flared section is labelled "a". The parallel sided strap "b" passes through the loop stitched to the lower end of part "a".

This meant that, unlike the Dimier Brothers design, the Pearson strap did not need to have the buckle attached to or stitched in after the strap was fitted to the watch. The Pearson strap could be easily put on to and taken off a watch by anyone without needing any special tools or a sewing kit. Even a modern strap attached to the watch by spring bars is nothing like as easy to put on or take off.

Straps are sometimes seen with “Reg N^o” stamped in the middle of the back of the flared section, with “SIMPLEX” in a curve above and the number 529337 below.

Pearson Victor: the Military G10 Strap

Pearson “Victor” straps usually carry a Registered Design number 529336. This shows that the design was registered with the British Board of Trade on 27 August 1908, the same date as the RD 529337 design with the flared centre section. I have obtained a copy of the Victor strap Registered Design specification, but it is not reproduced here for copyright reasons.

The Victor strap is identical to the RD 529337 and Dimier designs, except that the under strap is not flared, it is straight sided and the same width as the main top strap.

The image here shows a very old and battered leather watch strap that is stamped on the back “VICTOR 529336” and “Made in England”. It is immediately apparent that the design, with its under part and loop, is exactly the same as the British military G10 strap. Coincidence? I doubt it.

In 1908 when the Victor design was registered, the British War Office did not issue wristwatches so there was no government demand for wristwatches, although the utility of wristwatches when on military manoeuvres had long been recognised. British officers were expected to purchase their own wristwatches.

During the Great War, Wristwatches were issued to signallers and other ranks who needed them and who were not expected to buy their own. For many years Pearsons had been the largest manufacturer of watch straps in Britain and would have been the supplier of choice for the British military when wristwatches were officially issued. Pearson would have supplied their own special design of strap, the Victor, and been delighted to see it adopted as a military standard.

I have no doubt that this is how the G10 design came about, a development of the earlier Dimier Brother's design. Until I realised this I always wondered why the "under" part of the G10 was there.

Ladies' size versions of the Victor strap were stamped “Dainty” with the same Registered Design number.

English Straps for Swiss Wristwatches

The Pearson design looks so much like an improved version of the Dimier Brothers registered design that there was clearly collaboration between the two companies. Beginning in 1912 adverts like the one here started appearing in the Swiss watch trade paper La Fédération Horlogère suisse. The advert was placed by the Dimier Brothers company and is for leather bracelets (bracelets cuir) of English manufacture (fabrication anglaise) for wristwatches (montre-bracelet).

Although the manufacturer of the straps is not mentioned, it seems most likely that Dimier Brothers approached Pearson to make straps for them in Britain, and that when Pearson saw the Dimier design with the flared centre they soon came up with the alternative design that could be fitted to a watch with the buckle already attached to the strap. It also seems very likely that it was straps made by Pearson that Dimier Brothers were selling through their office in Switzerland.

Alfred Pearson

The company of E. J. Pearson was named after Edward John Pearson, who was followed into the trade by his son Alfred Edward. When Alfred died in 1966 at the age of 92, the notice shown here was published in the "Latest Wills" section of The Times. It says that Alfred "invented the watch strap as it is known and used now".

When I first heard of this I thought that the claim was that Alfred invented the watch strap per se, but the qualification as it is known and used now must be significant. Watch straps as worn in 1966 were very different from the first watch straps used on wire lug wristwatches, so Pearson, who became a large manufacturer of wristwatch straps under the Pearmak brand amongst others, must have introduced some feature that was regarded as significant.

The only strap design that was still in use in 1960 and could trace its unique design and history right back to the beginnings of the man's wristwatch is the Pearson Registered Design 529336, the strap that became the G10. The G10 was still being worn in 1966, as it is today, and it seems likely that this is what "the watch strap known and used now" refers to, the strap we now call the G10 or NATO.

Pearson Patent Number 368861

I have a watch strap stamped Pearmak with a silver coloured buckle that has the P&Ss sponsor's mark stamped on it, although it is not hallmarked so is not actually silver. It is also stamped Patent number 368861, which was granted to Alfred Edward Pearson of E J Pearson and Sons Ltd on 17 March 1932 with a priority date of 21 August 1931 for an "Improved means for attaching straps to wristlet watches". The address on the patent was Richbell Works, Emerald Street, Theobald's Road, London. The design described in the patent was an open ended watch strap that incorporated a thin metal plate in the open ends of the strap. The metal plate was curved to fit around the watch lugs or bars and thus made the fastening stronger.

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The Struggle for Men's Acceptance

A number of companies were producing men's as well ladies' wristwatches in the first decade of the twentieth century, or at least had them available in their range, and had perhaps made the odd one or two to special request. However, the vast majority of the wristwatches that were actually sold, as opposed to just being available in the manufacturer's catalogue, were ladies' wristwatches. 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.

The advert shown here 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 1901 Goldsmiths catalogue discussed on the previous page. But there is also a new twist: unlike the pocket watch in the Goldsmiths advert which was strapped to the wrist in a purpose made leather strap, the case at the bottom right of the advert has been adapted with wire lugs to take a "bracelet" and be worn as a wristwatch!

The advert goes on to say that this wristwatch 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 for certain activities men, and military men in particular, were starting to wear wristwatches.

The earliest known Borgel wristwatch like the one in the advert has been dated by IWC factory records to manufacture in late 1906 and delivery to Stauffer & Co. in London in January 1907. It was sent as a single watch rather than in a batch of six or twelve as IWC watches were usually sent to Stauffer, perhaps indicating that it was a prototype or sample. Even by 1912 and the time of this advert, men's wristwatches were still a long way from public acceptance and fashionability.

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 and Rolex

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 Wilsdorf had invented.

In 1910 Aegler submitted a Rolex wristwatch 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.

The Great War

In the summer of 1914 a series of political errors and blunders plunged the continent of Europe, and indeed the whole world, into a conflict that became known as the Great War. Millions of young men enlisted or were called up for military service, many of them leaving their provincial towns and rural villages for the first time. Amongst many new things and ideas that they encountered was the wristwatch. Although wristwatches had been worn by military men for may years, this was the first time that a large section of the civilian population had seen men wearing watches on their wrists. And not just any men, but professional soldiers and battle hardened veterans from the Western front and other theatres of war.

It also helped that most of the watches worn by officers had dials that could be read in the dark thanks to radium based luminous paint applied to the hands and dials. This glowed all the time with a bright unearthly light, much brighter and more constant than modern luminous paints, which in an era before the widespread availability of electric light impressed everyone that saw it. Every man wanted one of these new leading edge gadgets. Read on for the next chapter in the story on my page about trench watches.