English precision watch with power reserve indicator Circa 1896

Gold hunting cased pocket watch by Victor Kullberg
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An exquisite English precision pocket watch with spring detent escapement in its original box with commemorative coin, circa 1896.
18 carat gold, tiered, polished case with engraved monogram “RS”, gold dome with presentation engraving: “Presented to Robert Sutherland Strachnan on his 21st Birthday by his grandfather Robert Sutherland, 2nd April 1913” and case maker’s punch mark “EW”. Signed and numbered enamel dial with radial Roman hours, auxiliary seconds at “9”, 30 hour power reserve indicator at “3” and blued spade hands. 2/3 plate movement, frosted, gilt and signed, with screwed gold chatons, chain/fusee, optionally keywind or crownwind, engraved honour cyphers, spring detent escapement, gold screw compensation balance, freesprung, blued, helical balance spring and set diamond endstone on balance.
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Diameter: 55 mm
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Weight: 171 g
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Signed: Victor Kullberg, 105 Liverpool Road, London
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Victor Kullberg
Victor Kullberg was born at Visby on the island of Gothland, Sweden in 1824 and was apprenticed to a chronometer maker in 1840. On the completion of his training he was employed by Louis Urban Juergensen in Copenhagen, but was attracted to Britain at the time of the 1851 Exhibition.
In Britain he remained as a maker of marine and pocket chronometers to which he brought several innovations. From 1860 onwards, thanks to the high quality of his machines and the efficiency of his new forms of auxiliary compensation, he consistently scored ratings in chronometrical competitions throughout the world and was awarded numerous gold and silver medals. With an international trade and reputation he was appointed chronometer maker to the Swedish and Norwegian navies in 1874 and, about a machine entered for the Greenwich trials of 1882, the Astronomer Royal reported that it was ‘the finest chronometer they had ever had on trial’.

Although unmarried, Kullberg had two sons. On their father’s death, 7 July 1890, they jointly inherited the business with his nephew Peter John Wennerstrom. After the death of the nephews, Wennerstrom and his son bought out the other interests in the business. Subsequently it was continued by Sanfrid Lindquist and survived until the 2nk World War during which its premises were destroyed.
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Robert Sutherland Strachnan
Robert Sutherland Strachnan was born in 1892 in Glasgow. He died of blackwater fever on army service in 1929 in Egypt. He was possibly a Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps in WW1.