English chronometer with original wooden box Circa 1829

Silver large and heavy pocket watch by Richard Widenham
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A large, heavy English pocket chronometer with original wooden box, circa 1829.
The case is silver polished with case maker’s punch mark WR (William Rowlands of London). The signed and numbered enamel dial has radial Roman hours, auxiliary seconds, and gold spade hands. And the brass full plate movement is numbered, signed, frosted and gilt, and has a chain/fusee, two screwed gold chatons with end stones for second and escape wheel, a spring detent escapement according to Thomas Earnshaw, a Z shaped bimetallic chronometer balance with two screws and two weights, a free-sprung blued helical balance spring, a fine florally engraved balance cock, and a chatoned ruby endstone on balance.
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Diameter: 61 mm
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Weight: 220 g
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Signed: Widenham, London
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Richard Widenham,
Richard Widenham in London became a successful chronometer maker in London at a young age and won the Greenwich Premium Trials in 1825. In 1830 he worked at 6 East Street in Clerkenwell and from 1835 on at 13 LombardStreet. In 1832 he was appointed “Watchmaker to the Honourable Board of Admiralty” – Widenham’s marine chronometers were of outstanding quality. From 1839 to 1844 he was in partnership with Thomas Adams, who was in charge of the timekeepers of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband. The case of this deck watch was created by the case maker William Rowland of 32 Lower Smith Street, and manufactured at Northampton Square in 1829; he used a pendant for it that had already been made in 1825.