Cylinder escapement The cylinder escapement was invented by Thomas Tompion in 1695 and later perfected for use in watches by his protege, George Graham in 1726. The cylinder escapement was the first watch escapement where the escape wheel was in the same plane as the spring balance wheel. This allowed the watch to be made thinner. The escape wheel itself was fiendishly difficult to make, as the little cylinder wrapped around each escapement tooth in turn. Initially, it was not a widely used escapement due to the high wear rate using traditional metal materials; however, precious stones such as rubies were occasionally used in some high-value watches.
