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What did improve these pocket watches considerably was not an English invention, but it was patented and developed in England, which gave English makers an advantage over their rivals. Even with a spiral spring, a balance running in metal bearings was erratic. Running in jewel holes, the friction was reduced and the timekeeping was much improved.

The first to propose using drilled gemstones as bearings was a Swiss named Nicholas Facia who moved to England in 1687. Jewels known as end stones were fitted by English watchmakers before the introduction of pierced gemstones, and afterwards. They are still used today. The function of an end stone is to reduce friction when the pivot is vertical and turning on one end.

Diamonds had been brought into London from India for a long time, and these were supplemented substantially from around 1730, when Portuguese merchants began bringing rough diamonds into London from the new fields of Brazil. These were rose-cut for jewelery, as were Indian stones, and this was also suitable for jeweling watches. Around the 1750s many better quality watches and both pivots of the balance running in jewel holes and end stones as well.

Two further technical improvements were made to pocket watches in the early eighteenth century, the first by the English watchmaker Henry Sully who worked in France. He had the idea of cutting little cups, called oil sinks, around pivot holes to stop oil from being drawn or spreading away from the pivots. The other invention was made by one of the patentees of watch jewels, Peter de Baufre. He invented a frictional rest escapement that did not recoil.

The pocket watch continued to evolve with the English and the Swiss being the most successful watchmaking nations for most of the eighteenth century. By about 1750 while England was in a turmoil of invention, Geneva was building a big industry and doing so more rapidly than other countries, by concentrating on production and machining for mass production. The progression led to the watch bracelet then the electronic wrist-watch and is still continuing.

Learn more about this author, Janette Peel.
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