I'm not sure if this thread idea has any legs or not, but I would love to read stories of watches and clocks that have 'seen things' and would tell a compelling tale if they could talk. In many ways I hope for stories that are less about the watch itself (I don't think we need to read about "here's a complicated watch which sold at auction for $X million"), but more about the situations and historical context in which it has found itself.

A few thread 'rules'/pointers:

1. Please submit a potted history rather than simply linking to internet articles (though by all means include them for further reading).
2. While we're not here for class credit, it would be best to avoid direct plagiarism and/or copy/pasting huge chunks of text.
3. The watch need not necessarily be famous, provided there's a compelling story of the situation(s) it has found itself in.
4. I assume most of us are not professional historians, so correcting comments are probably unnecessary unless they are for glaring factual inaccuracies.

I suppose contributing and/or reading this thread may appeal to the more historical-minded, but I hope there might be some interesting tales to share and read for many. I'll kick off with the first contribution below.

The K2 Watch

No, not the mountain. The K2 watch is a watch manufactured by Larcum Kendall, a watchmaker from Oxfordshire working in London, in 1771.

The story dates back to 1714 when the Board of Longitude was established in Great Britain to offer a series monetary rewards for anyone who could develop a method for solving the problem of how to measure a ship’s longitude. The rewards were most famously given to John Harrison who, rather than solve the problem via astronomical measurements as may have been expected, tackled the problem directly through the accurate measurement of time.

Harrison ultimately developed three marine clocks (H1 to H3) and two watches (H4 to H5) which, after some arguments with the Board of Longitude, were deemed accurate enough to warrant distribution of prize money to him. These clocks and watches almost certainly deserve their own entries, so no more is to be said on these for now…

The problem with these “marine chronometers” was that they were prohibitively expensive; equivalent to roughly 30% of the cost of a ship itself. So Larcum Kendall, who had been one of the six experts on the Board of Longitude, was asked to reproduce H4 at a lower cost.

His first effort, K1, was essentially a direct reproduction of H4 and was completed in 1769. The cost of this watch (£450) was actually greater than the £400 it had cost Harrison to produce H4, and Kendall felt that the cost was too high for such watches to be put to general use. Instead of producing further copies, Kendall agreed that he would produce a modified design of H4 which would be simpler and cheaper to produce. He was able to do so, for around £200, but at a cost of reduced accuracy; daily inaccuracies were recorded in 1787 of 1.1 to 3.0 seconds per day inaccuracy (still not bad in my book…)

K2 was originally given to Constantine Phipps, a Royal Navy officer who served during the Seven Years’ War and the American War of Independence. The watch was on board for a 1773 expedition to the North Pole, which ultimately failed in an attempt to prove that the North Pole was accessible via the open sea.

But the history of the watch really comes alive in 1787 when it was assigned to then-Lieutenant William Bligh, whose name some may recognize as the captain of the HMAV Bounty. The tale of the Mutiny on the Bounty is one which is well-known and not repeated here, but K2 was taken by the mutineers and went with them to Pitcairn Island.

There the watch stayed until 1808 when the last remaining mutineer, John Adams, gave the watch to Mayhew Folger, the captain of an American whaling ship Topaz, who had rediscovered the Pitcairn Islands. But while stopping at Juan Fernandez Island off the coast of Chile, the Spanish Governor confiscated K2. Thereafter, the watch was sold to a Chilean muleteer called Castilo. The apparent price of three Doubloons would be (by my calculations) around £1,100 of gold today.

When Castilo died in 1840, the watch was sold to Captain Sir Thomas Herbert of HMS Calliope. The watch was repaired and cleaned in Valparaiso, Chile. Herbert presented the watch to the British Museum later in 1840 and it is now held by the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London.

I find it quite phenomenal the things this watch has seen. A timepiece at the forefront of mechanical time measurement, combined with the notoriety of the Bounty, make for a compelling story.

Photo credit: Royal Museums Greenwich

jkbarnes wrote: ↑Wed Feb 05, 2025 3:42 pm I misunderstood this and thought you were talking about members’ watches! While this is a great idea for a thread, I’m far more interested in the stories surrounding members and their watches than I am more famous watches. For example, I bet @rkovars’ GMT has “seen” some things! I think a number of members are active motorcycle riders. I bet they’ve got some stories tied to watches. Doesn’t someone transport donor organs across the UK? And I imagine @Amor Vincit Omnia could weave a great travel tale with one of his watches.

@jkbarnes I think pointer number 3 would absolutely not prohibit stories of members' own watches!:

timepieces_and_bags wrote: ↑Wed Feb 05, 2025 12:30 am 3. The watch need not necessarily be famous, provided there's a compelling story of the situation(s) it has found itself in.

A fascinating story Steve. I was similarly thinking of some other 'mountain watches', notably those worn by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay when they were the first (confirmed) people to summit Mount Everest, on 29 May 1953. While Rolex have undoubtedly claimed the crown (no pun intended) of Everest expeditions, typified in their Explorer model, there remains some debate as to which watch Hillary was wearing when he summited, and indeed who of Hillary and Norgay actually summited first.

Norgay himself had been gifted a Rolex after a 1952 Swiss expedition, which had reached the highest point to date of 300 meters below the summit. And prior to their 1953 expedition, both Hillary and Norgay were gifted Rolex watches.

It appears to be accepted that Norgay was wearing his (second) Rolex when he summited. Hillary on the other hand, may have left his Rolex at Base Camp and worn a British Smiths De Luxe watch. Subsequent marketing materials by Smiths even included a 'quote' from Hillary stating that he carried the Smiths watch to the summit.

Whether Hillary was wearing his Rolex Oyster Perpetual or the Smiths watch is the first debate. Whether Hillary or Norgay summited first is the second. While Norgay's autobiography states that Hillary was first, my limited research on the subject suggests that there is still speculation that Norgay summited first; no doubt also affected by sensitivities (I'm sure still prevalent today) over the role of the Nepalese Sherpas versus those who visit to climb the mountain.

One of the watches knows the truth, although I doubt we ever will.

Hillary's Rolex Oyster Perpetual Photo credit: Unwound by Crown & Caliber


Hillary's Smiths De Luxe, together with advertisement Photo credit: Unwound by Crown & Caliber

nbg wrote: ↑Thu Feb 06, 2025 4:36 pm
I don’t think there is any doubt which watch Hillary wore to the summit.

A rather detailed, albeit long, analysis here…
https://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.php? ... ht=Everest
Neil

Thanks Neil - I had a quick browse and there's some serious research gone into that, far more than my 5 minute attempt! I will try and find the time to read it more thoroughly at some point.