The earliest mention of
watch was in Shakespeare’s play "As You Like It." In
second act of
play one character produces a sun-dial from his pocket and muses about
time. Though at this time in history a true, portable timekeeping piece would have been too much of a hassle. Coming up with a powers source for
watch was impossible at this time. But in
1500’s Peter Henlein from Germany created
first pocket watch. And from that point on portable timekeeping was part of
norm. In
early 1600s, form watches came into being. Cases shaped like animals and objects and religious themed watches were
most popular. But cheap, portable clocks…watches…didn’t really come into wide spread use until 1780 when Abraham Louis Perrelet invented
self winding movement.
Watch making enters its prime period in
years that followed. In 1791, J.F. Bautte founded
watch company that would eventually become Girard-Perregaux. In 1820, Thomas Prest registers a patent for
self-winding watch. In 1833 Antoine LeCoultre started his own watch making business that would eventually become Jaeger-LeCoultre.
Other big names and when they were founded:
Minerva founded in 1858 Heuer founded in 1860 Zenith founded in 1865 Movado founded in 1881 Rolex founded in 1905 Citizen founded in 1918 Seiko founded in 1924
But probably
most innovative and best-selling watch of all time is
Timex. Timex created
Waterbury pocket watch in
1880s and made affordable timekeeping a mainstay for
average man.