Preceding the application of the principles of the pendulum to clocks, a wound spring
was developed during the middle of the 15th century to provide the power for a clock.
A hundred years would pass before the traditional weights that provided the power for
a clock would be challenged by this new power source. Yet, Spring Driven Clocks were
primarily responsible for moving the clock out of the tower and into the home by
making smaller mantel clocks
and wall clocks possible. This
miniaturization, at least compared with tower and floor clocks, produced near the
beginning of the 16th century watches to be carried in the carriages of 'gentlemen',
further miniaturization to the pocket was still years away. As wonderful as the new
spring driven clocks were, they were at least as prone to inaccuracy as the
weight-driven tower and floor clocks. At the center of this inaccuracy was the very
nature of the spring itself. The clock ran faster when the spring was tightly wound,
and then ran slower as the spring unwound. In fact, documents from the time often
state that those who carried a watch also had with them a small sundial and compass
to be sure of what time it actually was!! A partial solution was found with the
development of that is called a "fusee" in the early part of the 16th century. A
fusee essentially functioned as a pulley used with a barrel to equalize the uneven
pull of the mainspring, which was, of course, tighter when fully wound than when
slack. It would be over two hundred years until advances in metallurgy would allow
horologists to dispense with the fusee. What was needed was something similar to
the escapement used in a pendulum
clock to control the release of energy from the weights, which, when
combined with the use of the fusee, would bring the desired accuracy to spring
driven clocks and watches. This was not to come for half a century.
It was the Dutch mathematician, Christian Huygens, credited with applying the
parameters of the pendulum to timekeeping, who also patented the use of a balance
spring to control the release of energy from a spring. His patent was applied to a
pocket watch at about the same time as a British inventor, Robert Hooke, was doing
the same thing in England. Whoever was first, the application of a balance wheel to
the release of energy from a mainspring to power a clock or watch, along with the
fusee, brought the same accuracy to smaller timepieces as the escapement and pendulum
had brought to the weights. With the means now available to provide a steady transfer
of power from the mainspring to the clock's counting mechanism, spring driven clocks
exploded throughout Europe and America. As the cost went down, the popularity and
proliferation of spring driven clocks and watches went up. Spring driven watches
continued to be miniaturized over the years until they no longer needed to be carried
in the hand, but could be put in the pockets of "gentleman". By the late 18th century
most upper-class men carried a pocket watch, some stylishly carved silver ones, which
survive as valued antiques today. Pocket watches were used regularly until they were
supplanted by an even smaller and more convenient means to carry accurate time
keeping: the wristwatch.
Since it has no striking mechanism to sound the time, a wristwatch is "officially" a
timepiece and not a clock. The spring driven mechanism and balance wheel are the same
as found in any spring driven clock, however, and given it's universal usage and
availability as antiques, a bit of its history seems fitting. Originally created in
the late 19th century as a timepiece for upper class and noble women, it would take a
French designer and a war to put the watch on the wrists of men. The idea of a woman
taking out a pocket watch on a fob was not thinkable, nor, in some ways in the 19th
century, was the idea that a woman would have to know what time it might be anyway
any more thinkable. However, the movement of the industrial revolution and creation
of a "class" where luxuries were more status symbols than utilitarian created a
market for a watch, often bejeweled, to be elegantly worn on the wrist of those
women. As the 20th century dawned, many men were seeking ways to fly, we all are
familiar with the Wright Brothers. One of those early pioneers of "flying machines",
Alberto Santos-Dumont, so the story goes, was having difficulty checking the time on
his pocket watch while keeping his hands on the stick and throttle of experimental
aircraft. Reportedly, a friend of his, Louis Cartier, gave him a spring driven watch
on a leather band to put around his wrist so he would just have to turn his wrist to
see the time. The use spread in Europe, mostly due to the reputation of Cartier and
his jewelry empire. It was, however, WWI and the need for easy view of time on the
battlefield and co-ordination of artillery fire with infantry movements that
thoroughly established the wristwatch as a portable timepiece of choice for the
thousands of men returning home from that war. Some of those Government Issue watches
from WWI are still available as specialty items in some antique dealers. Companies
began producing spring driven wristwatches by the thousands after the war, for both
men and women, in affordable designs as well as maintaining the elegant style for
women. The balance spring continued to be the means of power for wristwatches,
whether wound daily by the owner or "self-winding" with the addition of a rocker
beside the mainspring, until the coming of universal electric power in the home and
battery power on the wrist. Very expensive, intricately styled, and collectible,
wristwatches continue to use highly refined balance springs in such models as Rolex,
Patek Philippe, Tag Heuer, and, of course, the company that started it all, Cartier.
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