In Print

In response to an e-mail enquiry - thanks for your interest in my work Johann - here's a list of my recent print-published horology articles:

Title	Subject	Publication	Issue Date
Grant of Fleet Street	John Grant and his son	Clocks Magazine	February 2016
Alexander Watkins 1	Watkins and his family	Clocks Magazine	April 2016
Alexander Watkins 2	Watkins and his family	Clocks Magazine	May 2016
Man or Brand?	Ralph and David Gout	Antiquarian Horology	June 2016
John Poole	John Poole	Clocks Magazine	August 2016
Ahead of its Time	George Sanderson	Clocks Magazine	March 2017
Impoverished Innovator	Joseph Berrollas	Antiquarian Horology	June 2017
The Circumvoluting Brand	Sigismund Rentzsch	Clocks Magazine	September 2017
Margetts	George Margetts	Clocks Magazine	December 2017

Christiaan van der Klaauw

Prompted by my research and writing on George Margetts – see here - I have been looking at the Astronomical Watches of Christiaan van der Klaauw.

Van der Klaauw produced his first astronomical clock in 1974.  Watch manufacture followed twenty years later with the Satellite du Monde model.  This featured time, day, date, moon-phase and noon-location indicator.  Just in time for the new millennium, the Planetarium model followed, claimed as embodying, “the smallest mechanical planetarium in the world.”

Planetarium models remain in production along with other current model families based on either moon phase or the stars.

Much as I admire the skills of the ‘old’ makers of pocket watch-scale astronomical pieces, I think I am even more impressed by what CVDK achieves with these relatively small wristwatches.

You may well find yourself spending quite a lot of time on this website: http://www.klaauw.com/eng

George Margetts (1748-1804)

I wrote an extensive article last year on George Margetts. His life and work are intriguing – with technical/craft skills contradictions, biographical uncertainties, business vicissitudes, possible deceptions, but, nevertheless, endeavour across a range of horological and scientific disciplines.

Margetts’s output includes decorative, multi-function watches, Marine Chronometers, clocks and watches with astronomical functions, calculating instruments and published writing based on complex arithmetical calculations.

Here is an example of an extant verge:

© Trustees of the British Museum

Number	Date	Description	Notes
Unknown	c1778	Astronomical, gold-consular cased verge.  Diameter – 55.2mm.	The dial shows the positions of the sun and the moon in the zodiac throughout the year, the stars visible each night, the age of the moon and the times of high tide at various ports around Great Britain. The whole dial rotates clockwise once per day, together with the solar and lunar indicators, but over the course of a year both solar and lunar hands regress at different rates to show the position of the sun and moon in the zodiac. Effectively, the dial rotates once in a sidereal day - 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds - and the solar and lunar hands rotate once in a solar and lunar day.  In the collection of The British Museum

The article includes a table with details/illustrations of 27 extant horological pieces attributed to Margetts.

Margetts’s story involves innovation contrasting with the more mundane.  His ultimate potential seems to have been unfulfilled and I wonder if his lack of success stemmed from technical shortcomings, lack of commercial focus or a paucity of ability to present himself and his ideas effectively - for example in his dealings with the Board of Longitude.  But, whatever might have been possible, there can be no denying that his Astronomical Watches were very expertly designed, are nicely evocative of his period and remain aesthetically triumphant.