Early verge movement by J. Latham, c. 1725

Gilt brass movement with baluster pillars and large D-footed winged cock pierced and engraved with a symmetrical baroque design incorporating flowers, monster-heads and a grotesque face at the joint between table and foot. Steel regulator disc with pierced surround. Signed Jno Latham / LONDON. Verge escapement with rather large shallow-rimmed crown-wheel. Brass balance-wheel. Later (c. 1800) convex white enamel dial with arabic chapter-ring. Diameter across dial 39mm.

John Latham was elected to the Clockmakers' Company in 1700 and died in 1740; he was a reputable maker, one of the relatively few who could cope with repeater-work at that period.

Below left
This back view of the movement shows many of the features that enable a movement to be dated before about 1740. The cock-table is very large (as is the balance-wheel beneath it) and its design is symmetrical about a vertical centre-line; there are ‘wings’ (leaf-like extensions) near the junction with the foot, and the foot itself forms a straight tangential line where it meets the table instead of being cut back into a wedge-shape; the lettering of the maker's name has a moderate slope rather than the more flowing script style of later years.

Below right
Almost exactly in the centre, you can see the escape-wheel (crown-wheel), which in this early example is quite large and has a shallow rim and short teeth. Over the next hundred years crown-wheels grew progressively smaller and deeper. The pillars are of the ‘baluster’ type, rectangular in cross-section, introduced in about 1700.
The dial is a replacement of about 1800; the original was probably of the flat champlevé type similar to the Gray watch.

The scarred enamel dial gives no clue to the age or quality of the movement behind it. Many old movements were similarly modernised at this period (c. 1800), before they became completely obsolete; often the new dial was made over-size in order to fit the very large cases then fashionable. Arabic numerals were in favour from about 1790 to 1815; afterwards the roman chapter-ring regained its ascendancy.

A grotesque face (sometimes explained as the Roman god Saturn, or else as Old Father Time) was a popular ornament on watch-cocks throughout the 18th century and is still occasionally seen in the 1830s.

The rusty screw in the cock foot is probably an improvised replacement; the original would have been blue and dome-headed.

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to hear the sound of a watch made before George Washington was born

Despite its great age and unrestored condition, this movement runs a full 24 hours at a winding and keeps time to within a few minutes a day (by contrast, the Barnard watch gains three minutes an hour!). Few verges have such a steady beat.