English verge with champlevé dial, alarm and repeating Circa 1700

Gilt metal watch with repeating and alarm

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An English gilt metal key wind open faced pocket watch with quarter repeating and alarm, circa 1700. Full plate fire gilt movement with dust cap, fusee and chain with worm and wheel barrel set-up between the plates.  Pierced and engraved cock with diamond endstone, small mask, pierced and engraved foot. Push pendant quarter repeating, two polished hammers striking on an internal bell. Signed gilt champlevé with signed central rotating disc for alarm, black Roman numerals, black outer minute divisions and Arabic numeral 5 minute markers, blued steel beetle and poker hands. Dial, movement & dust cap signed.
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Diameter: 54 mm
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Signed: J de Charmes London
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During the social and religious unrest towards the Huguenots in France preceding the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in October 1685, a large number of Huguenot craftsmen emigrated to neighbouring sympathetic Protestant countries.The coincidence of this timing suggests the De Charmes family may well have been one of the many Huguenot’s seeking sanctuary in England at the end of the seventeenth century.
With key.