George Daniels, Worlds Greatest Watchmaker
November 14, 2011 11:39 AM Subscribe
"When you make something as small and complex as a watch, you can't do a little and put it down and come back the next day and do a bit more. You work until you are exhausted, then pack it in for the night and start again the next day, always working to maximum capacity, or the watch wouldn't get done."
George Daniels took apart his first watch at the age of five. By the time he was in the army, he was repairing timepieces for his fellow soldiers. After his Dickensian childhood and war service, he took night courses on watchmaking and worked on repair full time. He became fascinated with antique pieces and became an authority on Brueget.
In 1970, he built his first watch entirely from scratch, a task made harder by his insisting on mastering the thirty four individual watchmaking crafts. He completed another 36 time pieces entirely by himself, each one an improvement over the previous, each one sold only if he liked the client. He also built another fifty with is apprentice Roger W. Smith.
He wrote books on watches and watchmaking, lectured around the world, and invented the Daniels co-axial escapement, which reduces friction on the works and is considered the first significant change in escapement technology in over two hundred years. (The system enables windup watches to have an accuracy comparable to quartz and battery numbers.) As you would expect, his watches command a premium at auction.
George Daniels, MBE, CBE, died last month at the age of 85.
There’s a bunch of video interviews of him from the wonderful Web of Stories
George Daniels took apart his first watch at the age of five. By the time he was in the army, he was repairing timepieces for his fellow soldiers. After his Dickensian childhood and war service, he took night courses on watchmaking and worked on repair full time. He became fascinated with antique pieces and became an authority on Brueget.
In 1970, he built his first watch entirely from scratch, a task made harder by his insisting on mastering the thirty four individual watchmaking crafts. He completed another 36 time pieces entirely by himself, each one an improvement over the previous, each one sold only if he liked the client. He also built another fifty with is apprentice Roger W. Smith.
He wrote books on watches and watchmaking, lectured around the world, and invented the Daniels co-axial escapement, which reduces friction on the works and is considered the first significant change in escapement technology in over two hundred years. (The system enables windup watches to have an accuracy comparable to quartz and battery numbers.) As you would expect, his watches command a premium at auction.
George Daniels, MBE, CBE, died last month at the age of 85.
There’s a bunch of video interviews of him from the wonderful Web of Stories
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posted by furtive at 11:42 AM on November 14, 2011