-
141 Harwood, John
SUBJECT AREA: Horology[br]b. 1893 Bolton, Englandd. 9 August 1964[br]English watchmaker, inventor and producer of the first commercial self-winding wrist watch.[br]John Harwood served an apprenticeship as a watch repairer in Bolton, and after service in the First World War he obtained a post with a firm of jewellers in Douglas, Isle of Man. He became interested in the self-winding wrist watch, not because of the convenience of not having to wind it, but because of its potential to keep the mainspring fully wound and to exclude dust and moisture from the watch movement. His experience at the bench had taught him that these were the most common factors to affect adversely the reliability of watches. Completely unaware of previous work in this area, in 1922 he started experimenting and two years later he had produced a serviceable model for which he was granted a patent in 1924. The watch operated on the pedometer principle, the mainspring being wound by a pivoted weight that oscillated in the watch case as a result of the motion of the arm. The hands of his watch were set by rotating the bezel surrounding the dial, dispensing with the usual winding/hand-setting stem which allowed dust and moisture to enter the watch case. He took the watch to Switzerland, but he was unable to persuade the watchmaking firms to produce it until he had secured independent finance to cover the cost of tooling. The Harwood Self-Winding Watch Company Ltd was set up in 1928 to market the watches, but although several thousand were produced the company became a victim of the slump and closed down in 1932. The first practical self-winding watch also operated on the pedometer principle and is attributed to Abraham-Louis Perrellet (1770). The method was refined by Breguet in France and by Recordon, who patented the device in England, but it proved troublesome and went out of fashion. There was a brief revival of interest in self-winding watches towards the end of the nineteenth century, but they never achieved great popularity until after the Second World War, when they used either self-winding mechanisms similar to that devised by Harwood or weights which rotated in the case.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsBritish Horological Institute Gold Medal 1957.Bibliography1 September 1924, Swiss patent no. 106,582.Further ReadingA.Chapuis and E.Jaquet, 1956, The History of the Self-Winding Watch, London (provides general information)."How the automatic wrist watch was invented", 1957, Horological Journal 99:612–61 (for specific information).DV
См. также в других словарях:
Second Life — Developer(s) Linden Research, Inc Engine Proprietary … Wikipedia
Second language acquisition — is the process by which people learn a second language in addition to their native language(s). The term second language is used to describe the acquisition of any language after the acquisition of the mother tongue. The language to be learned is … Wikipedia
Second language learning — (SLL) is the process by which people consciously learn a second language. According to the linguist Stephen Krashen, there is a difference in language learning and language acquisition.Explaining Second Language LearningThe linguist Stephen… … Wikipedia
Second Avenue Subway — Planned route of the NYC Subway Second Avenue Line ( T , in teal). Overview Type Rapid transit System … Wikipedia
Second empire — Empire français Second Empire ← … Wikipédia en Français
Second Council of Constantinople — Date 553 Accepted by Roman Catholics, Old Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Previous council Council of Chalcedon Next council Third Council of Constantinople … Wikipedia
Second Superpower — is a term used to conceptualize a global civil society as a world force comparable to or counterbalancing the United States of America. In the modern world, China and the former Soviet Union have been the often selected candidates which cover the … Wikipedia
Second Schleswig War — Part of the wars of German unification The Battle of Dybbøl by Jørgen Valentin Sonne, 1871 … Wikipedia
Second-order cybernetics — Second order cybernetics, also known as the cybernetics of cybernetics, investigates the construction of models of cybernetic systems. It investigates cybernetics with awareness that the investigators are part of the system, and of the importance … Wikipedia
Second-class citizen — is an informal term used to describe a person who is systematically discriminated against within a state or other political jurisdiction, despite their nominal status as a citizen or legal resident there. While not necessarily slaves, outlaws or… … Wikipedia
Second Amendment — may refer to:*Second Amendment to the United States Constitution mdash; part of the United States Bill of Rights *Second Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland mdash; an omnibus amendment *Constitution Alteration (State Debts) Act, 1909 mdash;… … Wikipedia
