![]() Enhancements to maritime watches enabled longitude to be measured accurately, saving countless lives at sea. Switzerland can partly thank fleeing French Huguenots for its watch industry. The story of watches is closely intertwined with major historical events. Timekeeping was at last within reach of ordinary folk. By the turn of the 20th century you could buy a watch for a dollar. Yet technological developments-and forgeries-made watchmaking cheaper, so “democratising time”. Having access to time meant being able to control it for other people, a power exploited by the 19th-century industrialists who extended working days beyond allocated hours. In his diary of 1665, Samuel Pepys described his new watch with childlike glee: “I cannot forbear carrying my watch in my hand…and seeing what o’clock it is one hundred times.” ![]() Ever more elaborate designs were the ultimate status signifiers. As watches developed, portable timekeeping was initially a privilege of the wealthy. Time was public, not private, and delivered from on high. ![]() In the medieval era, and for a while afterwards, clocks were found almost solely on church towers. Its central argument is that the changing nature of the watch has “reflected and developed our relationship with time”. ![]()
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