Mudge’s lever watch for Queen Charlotte

A gold watch with a white enamel dial, black Roman numerals and blued steel hands; the backplate is signed Tho Mudge / London.¹

The gold case, lined in red, carries London hallmarks for 1769–70 and the maker’s mark PM, which the Royal Collection says is probably that of Philip Mounier.¹

It stands in a square pedestal of tortoiseshell and gilt bronze, 10 centimetres high, with gold globes on its sides and the monogram GR. The Royal Collection notes signs of alteration and says the pedestal may not have been made for the watch.¹

The Royal Collection calls it the earliest known example of the lever escapement, and the forerunner of nearly all modern pocket and wrist watches.¹

The watch is dated; the escapement is not. The Royal Collection says Mudge devised the lever in 1754 and that this watch appears to be the earliest to use it; the Science Museum Group’s record of his portrait gives about 1753; Wikipedia gives 1754, first used in 1769.^1, 3, 4

The Royal Collection also says it was the earliest pocket watch with an automatic device to compensate for changes of temperature.¹

Mudge made few lever watches before turning to marine timekeepers, and the escapement spread slowly; how other makers took it up is told under the lever escapement.^2, 5

In letters to his patron Count von Brühl, the Saxon envoy in London, Mudge called it the ‘Queen’s watch’; the Royal Collection says George III probably acquired it for Queen Charlotte in 1770.¹

It went back to Mudge’s workshop in Plymouth for adjustment in the early 1770s, and he wrote to von Brühl about it while it was there.¹

The Dictionary of National Biography of 1894 also dates the first use of Mudge’s lever to this watch.²

The Royal Collection records the pedestal from 1825, when B. L. Vulliamy repaired the watch and overhauled the pedestal for George IV.¹

It remains in the Royal Collection, which calls it perhaps the most historically important watch in the world.¹