English gold watch with short chain and ratchet key Circa 1840

Gold duplex lady’s watch with a ruby roller
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A very fine and rare, thin English, 18K gold pocket watch with duplex escapement with a ruby roller, short gold chain and ratchet key, circa 1840. An engine-turned, hinged front cover with eccentric aperture, circular cartouche above engraved with a Baron’s coronet, hinged and sprung back cover. Hinged gold cuvette. Silver dial, eccentric, engine-turned, radial Roman numerals and outer minute track. Blued steel Breguet hands. A frosted gilt movement, bar calibre, eight jewels, duplex escapement, three-arm gold balance, blued steel flat balance spring with polished steel end-stud screwed to the cock, index regulator with bimetallic compensation curb. Movement and cuvette signed case numbered.
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Diameter: 45 mm
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Signed: Vulliamy  London
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The case is slightly rusted and the dial oxidized.
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The Vulliamy’s: Three members of this family were active from 1730 to 1854. Though they are best known for their exceptional regulator clocks, they also made some excellent watches and decorative clocks. Early in the 18th century, Justin Vulliamy emigrated from Switzerland and settled in London. He became associated with Benjamin Gray of Pall Mall, whose daughter he married and with whom he was in partnership from 1730 to 1775. Justin Vulliamy carried on the business after Gray’s death. Benjamin Gray had been clockmaker to George II, and the Vulliamy family held the office of a clockmaker to the reigning sovereign until the death of Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy in 1854.
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Justin’s son Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy was much favoured and consulted by George III on mechanical subjects, especially in connection with the Kew Observatory, which was a hobby of the King. Born in 1780, Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy was noted for the exactness and excellent finish of his work, in both clocks and watches. He took an active interest in the Clockmakers’ Company, of which he was five times Master between 1821 and 1848. In 1849 the Court presented him with a piece of plate in recognition of his services to the Company. The most characteristic Vulliamy watches have a duplex escapement and the whole top plate covered with a decorative pierced fret. These watches were made with little or no variation over a surprisingly long period, from before 1800 until well after 1820.
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Another rarer class of Vulliamy watch could almost be taken for a Breguet lever repeater, except that the centre of the gold or silver dial is matte rather than engine-turned. It is highly probable that these were made for Vulliamy by Sylvain Mairet. Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy died in January 1854.