The 13 names behind Britain’s great watch revival

Switzerland’s watch industry has taken the art of self-promotion to an impressive level, but there’s action a plenty in the “home” of horology. From the upcoming Summer issue out on December 8.

Simon de Burton

Dec 6, 2023 – 1.44pm

Email LinkedIn Twitter Facebook

Subscribe to gift this article

Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.

Subscribe now

Already a subscriber?

It only takes a brief dip into the horological history books to reveal that it was the Brits who came up with most of the important developments that enable modern watches to tick as they do.

Examples? How about the balance spring, invented by Robert Hooke in 1660; the sweep seconds hand, devised by George Graham in the early 1700s; the lever escapement, created by Thomas Mudge around 1755; the tourbillon, invented not by Abraham-Louis Breguet but by his Cornish friend John Arnold in the 1790s.