The Harwood self-winding watch

A wristwatch with no winding crown: a weight swung by the wearer’s movement winds it, and the hands are set by turning the bezel, as Harwood’s British patent describes.^1, 5

The Science Museum’s example, of about 1930, has a gold case with a glass back and a white dial with green Arabic numerals marked Harwood. Its weight is marked HARWOOD BLANCPAIN FAB SUISSE with the number of Harwood’s French patent, 580247, and the museum records it as made for Harwood by Blancpain.^2, 6

The Clockmakers’ example, of about 1928, has a silver case with a glazed back and a chequered silvered dial; its movement is marked Patent No 106583, the number of the Swiss patent.^2, 5

The Deutsches Uhrenmuseum in Furtwangen dates its Harwood from 1929 and describes it as the first wristwatch with automatic winding made in series.⁴

Its patents, British 218,487, filed with Harry Cutts on 7 July 1923, and Swiss 106583, published on 1 September 1924, claim a case with no opening, so that winding by the wearer’s movement also closed the watch against dust and water and tied it to water resistance.^1, 2, 8

It marks the point at which automatic winding, made for pocket watches since the 1770s and rare for a century and a half, became a wristwatch mechanism made in quantity.^3, 9, 10

Fortis and the Deutsches Uhrenmuseum call it the first automatic wristwatch made in series; Wikipedia records Léon Leroy’s side-weight wrist system of 1922 before it, and the wider dispute over who came first is told under John Harwood.^3, 4, 9

Fortis says its first Harwood automatics left the Grenchen factory on 13 July 1926; Wikipedia says the watches were shown at the Basel fair that year, with the movement maker A. Schild involved.^3, 11

Blancpain made it under licence: Wikipedia dates the licence, for France, to 1928, and the Science Museum’s example is recorded as made for Harwood by Blancpain.^6, 11

In America it was sold as the ‘Perpetual’, the Bolton clockmakers’ directory says, through the Perpetual Self-Winding Watch Company that Wikipedia names as the North American licensee.^11, 12

Harwood’s own company sold it in Britain from 1928 until it failed in 1931; Wikipedia and Fortis put the number made at about 30,000.^3, 9, 11

The Science Museum’s example came from J. Harwood and Son, by its record’s credit line.⁶

The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers lends its example to the Science Museum, where it is shown in the Clockmakers’ Museum gallery.⁵