Graham Gold Cylinder Watch After George Graham became a Freeman of the Clockmakers' Company in 1695, he joined the workshop of Thomas Tompion. He became Tompion’s protégé and married Tompion’s niece Elizabeth in 1704. Around 1711, he finally became Tompion’s partner, collaborating with his mentor in the last two years of Tompion’s life. Graham then inherited Tompion’s business. He continued to use Tompion’s numbering systems, reputably the world's first serial number system. In this system, repeating watches had a number sequence of their own. Graham took over Tompion's list from about No. 400. He went on to produce great quantities of watches, using a further 600 numbers or so. Most of these miniaturised marvels of technology have since been lost. Fortunately, this magnificent watch survives.[1] The bottom plate of this watch is beautifully engraved with floral swirls accompanying the signature Geo. Graham London and the serial number No. 696. This number also appears in three other places on the watch: scratched inside the back rim of the outer case, engraved on the outside of the inner case, and punched on the side of the inner case. The use of the scratched numbers made inventory tracing easier. The presence of the scratched number also indicates that when Graham took over Tompion’s workshop, he continued to use Tompion’s outworkers. Graham perfects the cylinder escapement This quarter-repeating watch with alarm was state of the art when it was made, because it features Graham’s cylinder escapement design. It was Tompion who invented the cylinder escapement in 1695, but Graham was the one who, in 1726, perfected the design for use in watches. Graham wanted the advantage of a thinner watch that also built upon the spring balance verge escapement watches that Tompion and Robert Hooke had collaborated on. Graham did this by designing a watch escapement that has the escape wheel in the same plane as the spring balance wheel. With the tools then available, he designed a cylinder that rotates around the escape wheel teeth. This would have been fiendishly difficult to make, and Graham's success in this achievement is a testament to his talent. The movement is signed Geo. Graham London 696. The gilt balance cock is pierced and superbly scroll-engraved with a mask below the diamond end stone. The number 696 also appears under the cock and on the top plate. Three-hundred years ago, a watch capable of telling the owner the time by striking every 15 minutes in the dark was incredibly innovative and a valuable asset. A superb case for a superb watch The majority of early watch cases were made of silver. The cost of a gold case, such as the one for this watch, could only be justified by the superior quality of the watch. The gold case of this watch features a detailed scene in repoussé, a technique developed in the 1690s in which decorative motifs or scenes are embossed in thin gold. Decoration was created in bas-relief from behind, finished with fine detail, and chased and engraved from the front. The scene on this watch was created by one of the finest repoussé artists of the time, Ishmael Parbury, who worked as a gold chaser after he gained his Freedom in the Society of the Apothecaries in 1723. His hallmark accompanies his signature, Parbury, on the outer case of the watch. He was one of the few casemakers who signed his work. This watch’s gold case was also hallmarked by the Goldsmiths' Hall in London with the date letter S for 1733/4. The outer case: an allegory of British endeavour? Typically, the subjects of repoussé scenes were taken from Greek and Roman mythology or from the Bible. Not so for this case. The watch’s gold outer repoussé case depicts an elaborate scene expertly detailed by Parbury.[2] On the left side, Britannia is seated in her chariot, wearing a draped flower-patterned gown and holding a spear in her right hand. Her chariot’s wheel is decorated with a mythical animal. Alongside her discarded buckler and helm are arrows and a North American-style bow. With her left arm extended, Britannia leans forward, welcoming Chronos (Father Time). He holds onto a towel wrapped around him as he rises out of the roiling Atlantic Ocean towards the New World (North and South America) depicted on the central globe. The detail on the maps is incredible. Clearly identifiable is Hudson Bay in the north, as well as the whole of the American hemisphere down to Patagonia in the south. In the background, there are tropical trees and two ships. Surrounding this scene is a scrolled decorative border. Within this border are four scrolled cartouches, each containing distinct groupings of instruments.[3] The first cartouche contains instruments used in surveying: a waywiser, tripod with plane table, compass and sighting rule. The second contains instruments associated with navigation: a sighting telescope, a chart roll, an azimuth compass, a front staff and a back staff. In the third are instruments used for astronomical observation: a ruler, telescopic quadrant, Gunter quadrant and protractor. The final cartouche contains a group of timekeeping instruments: a clock, sand glass, sundial and watch. In his book The Art of the Chaser, Richard Edgecumbe cites Prof. G. L’E. Turner, who suggested that the instruments depicted by Parbury may have been copied from the trade card of an instrument maker. In its highly detailed totality, Parbury’s chased scene has been interpreted as an allegory of the British endeavour to find the solution to the problem of determining longitude at sea. Given the New World-themed subject matter, this interpretation goes towards reliably identifying the female figure as Britannia rather than the Roman goddess Minerva (who is associated with similar attributes, i.e. armour and weapons). The easily identifiable groupings of instruments within each cartouche also lend credibility to this interpretation: all were commonly used or created by clockmakers and astronomers, such as Harrison and the then Astronomer Royal Edmund Halley. They were also commonly used by clockmakers and astronomers to solve the problem of determining longitude – the most challenging scientific problem of the day. Longitude was a common, even popular theme around the time this watch was made. Edgcumbe notes that Parbury created the same scene on another of Graham’s gold outer watch cases dating from around 1735. There is also another, later example, by a different but unnamed chaser, of the same scene within an asymmetrical cartouche associated with a movement signed by Henry Moze. That example also features a group of scientific instruments in its foreground: a telescope, Gunter quadrant, nocturnal and cross-staff. Graham’s stake in a mechanical solution It is certainly plausible that the subject of longitude was of personal interest to Graham. In her book Longitude, author Dava Sobel recounts how innovative clockmaker John Harrison went to London in 1730 to pitch his concept for a sea clock to the Astronomer Royal, Edmond Halley.[4] Although Halley favoured an astronomical approach to the solving of longitude (as did the other members of the Board of Longitude) Sobel explains that he ‘kept an open mind’ and 'Rather than march Harrison into the lion’s den, Halley sent him to see the well-known watchmaker George Graham. “Honest” George Graham, as he was later called, would be the best judge of the sea clock Harrison proposed to build'[5] Initially, Graham treated Harrison as a time waster and gave him short shrift, but the Yorkshireman stood his ground.[6] Graham soon realised that Harrison’s wooden clock, with its gridiron pendulum and grasshopper escapement, was more accurate than any clock he or any other clockmaker in London had ever made. So impressed was Graham with Harrison’s ideas for a sea clock that at the end of their first day-long meeting, he loaned Harrison £200, without security, so that Harrison could start work on his marine timekeeper H1 sea clock. Harrison’s initial fears that Graham would steal his idea were entirely misplaced. Graham had become Harrison’s patron, providing him with a generous loan as well as encouragement. Graham was not known throughout London as ‘Honest George’ for nothing. When Harrison completed his H1 sea clock and brought it to London in 1735, Graham personally showed it to the Royal Society, whose members, as described by Sobel, ‘gave it a hero’s welcome’. On behalf of the Royal Society, Graham then wrote a glowing endorsement of the clock and its maker. The watch’s case was hallmarked and made in 1733, four years before Harrison tested his legendary H1 sea clock. The scene on this watch could be an expression of Graham's belief that a horological solution to the problem of longitude was within reach, and that Harrison’s H1 was the key to enabling navigators to find their position at sea and to safely opening transatlantic trade routes. The inner gold case The watch’s inner gold case is pierced and engraved. Around its circumference is an engraved border, and its outer edge is finely pierced and engraved with a mask and foliage. There is another engraved border of leaves along the case’s bottom edge. The hinged gilt-rimmed lid is inset with glass, which protects the dial from dust. The inner case is hallmarked 1733 and numbered 696. It also features the casemaker’s mark, IW. This mark was registered by John Ward of ‘Boars Head Court, Fleet Street', 'free Clockmaker', on 26 June 1730. The dial The dial of this cylinder watch is elegantly monochromatic. The black Roman numerals on the chapter ring contrast beautifully with the pure white enamelling on the dial face. Surrounding the chapter ring is a thin outer ring with black Arabic minute numerals, with the traditional Roman numerals housed inside. The hour and minute are indicated by a delicately forged pierced and chamfered foliate hour hand and a delicately ornamented minute hand – beautiful miniatures of contemporary clock hands. In many ways, it is unsurprising that this highly technical and beautifully crafted watch was produced by ‘Honest’ George Graham, whose ethos as a maker embodied a spirit of innovation and collaboration – a spirit that he extended to fellow clock- and watchmaker Harrison when Harrison needed it most. End Notes [1] Brusa 1978, fig. 477 and 478; Carter 2021, 216-219; Edgcumbe 2000, 133–134; Taylor et al. 2019, 29, Exhibit No. 4:6. [2] Brusa 1978, figs. 477 and 478; Edgcumbe 2000, 138-139, fig 130a-e. [3] Warner 1990, 83-93. [4] Sobel 2011, 75-77. [5] Sobel 2011, 76. [6] Sobel 2011, 79, 82 and 86. References Britten, F. J. 1986. Britten’s Old clocks and watches and their makers: A history of styles in clocks and watches and their mechanisms (9th Edition). London: Bloomsbury Books. Brusa, G. 1978. L’arte dell’orloge*ia in Busto Arsizio. Carter, J. 2021. The John C Taylor Collection: Part I (Selling exhibition catalogue, Carter Marsh & Co). Winchester: Carter Marsh & Co. Edgcumbe, R. 2000. The Art of the Gold Chaser in Eighteenth Century London. London: Oxford University Press. Sobel, D. 2011. Longitude: The true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time. London: Harper Perennial. Taylor, J. C., K. Leith and T. Phillipson. 2019. The Luxury of Time: Clocks from 1550-1750. Isle of Man: Fromanteel Ltd, Catalogue. Warner, Deborah Jean. 1990. ‘What is a scientific instrument, when did it become one, and why?’ in The British Journal for the History of Science 23:1, 83-93.
