English silver single hand inner rotating hour watch Circa 1665

Silver watch with a minute hand and inner rotating hour dial
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An English important and extraordinary early silver cased verge watch with a minute hand, inner rotating hour dial, and concealed seconds dial to the backplate, circa  1665, gilded full plate movement, verge escapement, four wheel train, decoratively pierced and floral engraved silver screwed-on balance cock and foot, worm and wheel set-up, fusee and gut line, silver seconds dial to the backplate with an outer ring marked for seconds and inner ring with five-second Arabic numerals engraved and filled in black, engraved with a flower to the center heightened with red wax, ribbed blued steel hand, movement signed John Fitter Battersea.
The dial is silver with inner disc engraved with Father Time pointing to the hours against a stippled background, outer chapter ring with black Roman numerals, red wax half-hour divisions between and quarter-hour divisions filled with red wax beneath, outer minute ring indicated via central blued steel decoratively ribbed minute hand, matching ribbed seconds hand to the backplate.
Silver inner case, the back with engraved tabulated Julian calendar, lacking outer case.
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Diameter: 49 mm
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Signed: John Fitter Battersea
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This important and famous watch has featured in numerous publications and exhibitions. It is a technically advanced watch for its date, displaying hours, minutes and seconds, as well as incorporating a four wheel train which allows it to run for more than 24-hours. Due to the inaccuracies of early watches, relatively few were made with minute hands prior to the introduction of the balance spring. The layout of the present dial is especially unusual with the figure of Father Time pointing to the hours, whilst the single hand indicates the minutes to the outer edge. Indeed, so unusual is the configuration for its period, that the original owner would have had to remember not to see the minute hand as an hour hand.  Given the extraordinary rarity of minute indication at this time, it is all the more remarkable to find seconds indication.

Concealed to the backplate. Made before the introduction of the balance spring, the seconds dial would have been useful for measuring only very short durations. Viewing the backplate, it is interesting to see Fitter’s signature specially laid out to either side of the seconds dial, whilst the seconds dial itself is heightened with an engraved flower to the center, highlighted with red wax. The calibrations to the seconds dial run counter
clockwise and the hand is mounted on an extended arbor of the contrate wheel.

John Fitter was most likely trained by his father Nicholas. Although John was known to the Clockmakers’ Company and took apprentices through them, he did not become a Free Brother until 1685. John was dead by 1698.