Large English silver pair cased verge watch with date Circa 1790

Silver quarter repeater
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A large English silver pair cased quarter repeating verge pocket watch with date, circa 1790. Fire gilt full plate movement, a pierced and engraved cock, silver regulator disc, fusee and chain with a worm and wheel barrel set-up between the plates, plain three arm steel balance and blued steel spiral hairspring. Quarter repeating on a bell in the case by pushing the pendant. The repeater has a button to reduce the sound of the repeater so olne can only feel the repeater. White enamel dial, Roman hours, an outer minute track with Arabic five minute numerals, inner Arabic chapter ring for the date and Breguet hands. A plain outer case, the inner case is pierced and engraved.
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Diameter: 60 mm
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Weight: 175 g
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Signed: Eardley Norton London
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Eardley Norton was an English watch and chronometer maker of great repute born in 1728 in Lincolnshire and died in 1792. He apprenticed as a clockmaker on 25 May 1743 to Robert Dawson of Alford, in 1760, he was working in London at 49 St. John Street, Clerkenwell and was a member of the Clockmakers’ Company from 1770 until he died. He mainly made complicated timepieces but also had his name on some cheaper watches, which he signed with Yeldrae (Eardley backwards). His name was further sometimes faked on Swiss watches. In 1771, he patented a new type of striking mechanism for clocks and watches. For George III he made a Royal watch collection of which the showpiece was an astronomical clock with four dials. Norton received 1.042 pounds sterling for these watches, a considerable sum at that time. Another notable work is the musical clock he made for the Russian Tsarina Katharina.