Exceptional rare English silver pair cased verge pocket watch Circa 1720

Silver verge in pair cases by John Bushman
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An exceptional English silver pair-cased verge watch with an outer case featuring a manual perpetual calendar, indications for saints’ days, seasons, religious festivals, sunrise, sunset, and daylight hours, circa 1710. The watch features a gilded full plate movement with a verge escapement, a winged masked balance cock that is pierced and engraved with scrolling foliage, and a centred shell. It also includes broad pierced cock foot, silver regulation disc, crested Egyptian pillars, fusee and chain, and is signed and numbered by John Bushman of London as no. 1252, with an additional B stamped to the top plate. The dial is silver champlevé with Roman numerals filled with black wax and half-hour divisions. It also features an outer Arabic minute ring against a stippled ground, a blued steel beetle and poker hands, and a gilded outer ring. The dial centre has banners surrounded by chased and engraved scrolls, and it is signed Bushman, London.
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The timepiece consists of two cases. The inner case is plain silver with a shuttered winding aperture, numbered 1252 and bearing the maker’s mark IW incuse, likely indicating John Willoughby. The outer case has a square hinge and an engraved bezel indicating the months and their respective number of days. The case back is divided into 12 segments corresponding to each month shown on the bezel, with each segment featuring the sign of the zodiac, named saints’ days and dates of Christian festivals, and indications for the beginning and end of the seasons. Calculation tables are located beneath these segments. Additionally, the centre of the outer case contains two revolving discs for calculating the length of daylight hours, sunrise and sunset times, and future dates. The outer case bears the maker’s mark WS beneath a crown incuse, attributed to William Sherwood.
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Diameter: 57 mm
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Signed: John Bushman London
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The outer case of this watch features an exceptionally intricate series of calculating tables. The complexity of these tables would have required detailed planning and preparatory drawings to ensure the engraver’s work was executed accurately.
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The dial has a ‘B’ stamped on the back of the under-dial plate, with light scuffs, scratches, and some losses to the black infill of the numerals. The inner case has indentations to the band as expected, and a very small split to the shutter for the winding aperture. The outer case retains good definition for engraved tables and calendars, with some rubbing and loss of definition to the two central revolving discs. The movement is running at the time of cataloging and appears to be in good clean condition, although the top right of the crest to one of the Egyptian pillars has broken off.
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John Bushman, also known as Johannes Buschman III, was born in Augsburg in 1661. At the age of 29, he married Mary Wyatt, who was 23 years old, in the Parish of Westminster, London, in 1690. Two years later, in 1692, he became a brother in the Clockmaker’s Company and eventually rose to the position of Assistant in the Company in 1720.