George Margetts, London

• gilt metal back plate with decorative engraving, large aperture surrounding the balance, straight line lever escapement, large three-arm bi-metallic balance with screwed wedge-shaped weights, flat balance spring, diamond end-stone • white enamel dial, three subsidiary dials and three rotating dials showing hours, minutes and seconds, as the hands advance mean solar time is read against the fixed dials, sidereal time read against inner dials which contra rotate • plain gilt metal case with maker's mark IH for John Hadley • dial signed, movement signed Geo. Margetts, London, No. 1128

Time Museum, Rockford, Illinois, Inv.no. 3411

Sotheby's New York, Masterpieces from the Time Museum, 13th-14th October, 2004, Part Four, Vol. II, lot 628

Time Museum, Rockford Illinois, Inv.no.3411

Anthony G. Randall, The Time Museum, Catalogue of Chronometers, 1992, Cat. no. 108, p. 238
Terence Camerer Cuss, The English Watch 1585-1970, p. 316, pl. 198

For a detailed discussion of astronomical watches by George Margetts, see George Daniels, “The Astronomical Watch by George Margetts in the Possession of the Royal Institution, and some Timekeepers by Margetts” Antiquarian Horology, (March 1970), pp. 350-358, and for a complete description of the lever escapement and motion work used on the present watch see, Anthony G. Randall, The Time Museum, Catalogue of Chronometers,1992, Cat. no. 108, p. 238.

Margetts no. 1128, is significant as it remains the only known Lever watch signed by Margetts. The combined display of sidereal and mean solar time on the dial is also unusual. Rees’s Cyclopaedia, published in 1819-1820, includes a diagram of the complex and elegant motion work together with another of a slightly less advanced version of the escapement. It is thought that Reverend Pearson, the author of the horological section of the Cyclopaedia, may have owned this watch; see Camerer Cuss, The English Watch, p. 316.

 For a note on George Margetts, see lot 69.