Large English 18K gold complicated lever watch Circa 1880

Gold repeater with seven complications
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A fine, rare and large Swiss 18 carat open faced minute repeating keyless lever pocket watch with perpetual calendar, chronograph, moon phases and lunar calendar, circa 1880. Frosted gilt movement with 31 jewels, a calibrated and counterpoised straight line lever escapement, cut bimetallic compensation balance, blued steel Breguet balance spring, an index regulator, repeating on gongs activated by a slide in the band. The hinged gold cuvette engraved Boxell Brighton. White enamel dial with Roman hours, outer minute divisions, Arabic five minute numerals, an outermost fifth of a second track, subsidiary dials for the seconds, the days of the week, date and months with leap year indication, an aperture for the moon phases with a lunar calendar at 6 o’clock and original gilt spade hands. Polished case, correctors in the band. Accompanied by a three-tier mahogany box.
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Diameter: 55 mm
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Signed: Boxell Brighton
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The complications: minute repeating, chronograph, perpetual calendar, date, days of the week, months, moon phases and age.
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Thomas Boxell was born in 1823 in Brighton, England and died in 1885. He was recorded as a watchmaker and jeweller in Brighton as early as 1845. As a young man, Boxell was apprenticed to a local watchmaker and at the age of 22, he was running his own business as a watchmaker and jeweller at 55/56 Albion Street.

Kelly’s Directory of Sussex published in 1846 lists Thomas Boxell as a watchmaker at 56 Albion Street in Brighton. The 1851 census records him at 1 North Street Quadrant, Queen’s Road. The census return describes Boxell as a 27 year old watch and clockmaker, employing four men. That same year, he opened a second shop in North Street. Kelly’s Post Office Directory of Sussex and Taylor’s Original Brighton & Hove Directory lists Thomas Boxell at 145 North Street, in their lists headed Watch & Clockmakers. Advertisements published in the Brighton Herald in November 1856 announced Boxell’s removal to 40 King’s Road. Melville & Co.’s Directory of Sussex, issued in 1858, gives his full business address as The Brighton Observatory, 40 King’s Road, Brighton. When the census was taken some 25 years later on April 3rd, 1881, Boxell was recorded as a master watchmaker employing 11 hands at 43 King’s Road.