Posts Tagged ‘16th Century’

Pocket Watch To Wrist Watch

We all know time keeping started with the Egyptians around 1500 B.C. There was a lot of innovation and invention between that time and 1524 when one of the first watches was invented in Italy. The piece of watch history that I thought was intriguing was how it evolved from a pocket watch into the timepiece we use today.

Clock technology became small enough to be used in pocket watches in the 16th century. They were big and clunky until the 17th century when design was applied to the pocket watch. Pocket watches were typically worn by the rich upper class. The technology grew smaller and women started wearing wrist watches. The women’s wristwatches or wristlets were considered quite feminine and any man’s man would not were a wristlet.

This all changed during the Boer war (1899 – 1902). A little trivia fact here this Boer war was actually they second Boer war and these colonies later created the Union of South Africa. Although the British were better trained and had better equipment they needed precise timing to out maneuver the entrenched Boers . Some of the troops began strapping pocket watches to their wrists with leather straps. This allowed them to keep track of time without interfering with combat.

The idea began in the Boer war but caught on in World War I. Watches were manufactured with metal guards that protected the watch face and allowed the wearer to tell time.

And of course what is more masculine than a soldier in combat. When soldiers came back home wearing wrist watches no one was going to make fun of them. Watch manufacturers started producing the wristwatch to fulfill military orders. There you have it from pocket watch to wristwatch.
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