The first ever mechanical time-keeping devices that could be worn by a person instead of mounted to a wall were called clock-watches. They possessed only a single hour hand, and had to be wound twice each day. And of course, they were notoriously inaccurate, with poor quality movement and heavy, unwieldy pieces.
The next stage of advancement was the ever-so-adorable pocket watch. In the 1600’s, the upper crust was extraordinarily concerned with fashion, and apparently the pocket watch was crafted after King Charles II of England brought the fashion of the waistcoat to hip gentlemen in Europe. Pocket watches still exist (in a sort of meta, anachronistic kind of way), but the originals were quite inaccurate. It wasn’t until 1657 and the invention of the balance spring that minute and even second hands were used. In 1765, chronometers started being used, and pretty delicate temperature compensations further whittled down the margin of error on fine pocket watches.
In the early 1800’s, what’s known as a lever escapement was created by a watch worker Thomas Mudge, and suddenly pocket watches were much more viable and popular, and not only for the rich. In 1850 with the onset of the industrial revolution, humanity suddenly realized the potential of mass production, and something of a ‘pop culture’ obsession grew around pocket watches and later, wristwatches.
Wristwatches has actually been in use for quite sometime by women, who were thought not to possess the correct garb (or enough masculinity) to successfully carry a pocket watch everywhere, and thus were reduced to strapping timepieces to their wrists. It wasn’t until about the 20th century that wristwatches became a man’s item, as well.
The original wristwatches were called ‘trench’ watches, and they were much larger than today’s wristwatches. In 1923, John Harwood revolutionized the watch-making world when he invented a watch that could wind itself, and pocket watches were history.
In the 1950’s, electric watches came onto the scene, and in 1969 quartz watches graced the world stage. As accuracy was pinpointed to the perfectly predictable oscillations of these fine new instruments, wrist watches became more about performance and less about fashion, though of course they still remain a staple accessory and beautiful pieces of technology.
Today, many fear that with the onset of cell phones, iStuff, and hand held computing devices, watches will go the way of the dinosaurs. Why bother strapping and antiquated technology to your wrist when you can access a multitude of information with your electronics?
Because there is something timeless about the timekeeping of a watch- the slow, inexorable ticking of our passage through the 4th dimension that can’t be captured on the glowing screen of an iPhone. There will always be a place for beautiful, functional wristwatches in the world.