My Great, Great Grandfather’s Pocket Watch
Many years ago my father gave me a pocket watch that’s been in my family for five generations. It didn’t work, and I didn’t know anyone who could fix it, so it sat in my drawer for a very long time. Then, recently my brother found a watch repairman who was interested in servicing it. His name is Tom Patana, and if you need a watch repaired, I highly recommend him. You can contact Tom at 503-283-0070.
Tom spent about 12 hours working on the watch. It broke over twenty years ago and had spent the intervening years sitting in a drawer. As a result it needed a lot of delicate work to get it back in shape. Interestingly, one of the ruby jewels had broken and had to be replaced, something Tom was very surprised to see.
The watch is now in excellent working condition. It’s got a strong, even beat to it and it’s been keeping very accurate time for the last week, losing only about 30 seconds every two or three days. What makes that even more impressive is that the watch is 137 years old.
After some research, here’s the history of the watch as far as I can determine:
In the mid 19th century the Hughes family resided in Wales where they were coal miners. They lived in the heart of the region that produced nearly 2/3 of the world’s coal at the time. Around 1870 my great, great grandfather Joseph J. Hughes met his future wife Jane Baxter. Jane and her family were from a small Welsh town called Llanidloes and when the two got married I believe this watch was given to JJ. Hughes as a wedding gift by Jane’s father Lewis Baxter. The movement in the watch is engraved with the name of the watch maker (William Williams) and the town the watch was made in.
The watch was made to order, the movement manufactured in Llanidloes and the case made in London. The silver assayer’s marks indicate that the case was finished in 1873 and show that the silversmith was John William Hannon who had his studio at 11 Sekforde Street, Clerkenwell, London.
The watch is a type of machine known as a “fusee movement.” All mechanical watches are powered by a wound up main spring that provides the motive force to move the gears around. When the main spring is freshly wound it releases more energy than when it’s run down toward the end. That means that without compensation the watch would run faster when the spring is wound tight and slower when the spring is wound out. To account for this variability the fusee movement uses a very small chain (like a bicycle chain) that wraps around a cone shaped barrel. When the watch is tightly wound the chain releases less energy to the watch and as the watch winds down the chain releases incrementally more power, making for a very even power distribution across the entire wind range.
The gears or wheels in this movement are jeweled for smooth motion. I believe this watch has 15 – 17 jewels.
Fusee movements were very popular in 19th century England and it’s a testament to the craftsmen behind this watch that 137 years after it left the watchmaker it’s still running strong and keeping excellent time.
A watch of this type was an expensive purchase back in 1873. Here’s a quote from a helpful watch historian who helped me figure out some of the watch’s history:
In Priestley’s seminal book on watch cases, he refers to some archives (dated about 1870) of Benson Bros in which they quote the cost of making a hunter case (excluding case metal) at 12 shillings. Priestley says the gold cost of a 2 ounce 18K case at that time would have been 6 pounds 7 shillings, so I’ll guess that Sterling silver would have cost at least 1 pound. Allowing for the cost of the movement, and the profit margin, my wild guess at what it would have cost to buy this watch is at least … FIVE POUNDS. I do know that a particular top of the range movement in a heavy 18K gold case in 1898 did cost £30.
The average miner’s wage in 1873 was 1 pound 13 shillings which had reduced to 1 pound by 1879. So this watch probably cost anywhere between three and five weeks gross earnings !!!!! That would be the equivalent of £1500-2500 today.
The current exchange rate for Pounds to Dollars is about 2:1, so the contemporary cost for a watch like this one would be in the range of $3,000.o0 to $5,000.00. That’s more than I spent on my latest computer, and the chances that it’ll still be in service by 2143 are absolutely nil.
JJ. Hughes, his wife Jane and Jane’s parents all came to America in the late 1880s. They moved here because the coal mines in Wales were drying up. Some of their relatives had moved to America earlier and found work in the coal mines of Kentucky, and that’s where JJ. Hughes and his family ended up. They settled in a little town called Pittsburgh in Laurel County, Kentucky. JJ. Hughes probably passed this watch on to his son JL. Hughes but it’s unlikely that JL used it much. JL Hughes was a railroad conductor and he carried a 1911 Hamilton 992 watch, which was a “railroad standard” time keeping device accurate to 30 seconds per week. The old Welsh fusee watch simply wasn’t accurate enough (or approved for use by his employer) to do duty as a railroad watch. So it probably sat in his drawer, maybe only coming out for special occasions. When JL Hughes died the watch became my father Harold E. Hughes’s, but by that time (the mid 1960s) men were wearing wrist watches almost exclusively. My dad put it in a drawer and there it sat until he gave it to me all those years ago.
Long story short, this watch has seen the inside of a lot of drawers, but now it’s back to life and clicking along happily.
If you’re an astute reader, you’re probably wondering why I refer to this as my great, great grandfather’s watch when the story above indicates that it’s actually my great grandfather’s. As some of you know, I was raised by my grandparents, so the man I refer to as my dad is actually my grandfather. My biological father has been “out of the picture” since I was only a few months old.
Though the watch is strong and keeping good time, I’m going to place it in a glass dome display case and keep it in my office. It’s just a little too delicate for day to day use, but it’ll be a fantastic desk clock with a rich family history.
