Charles Frodsham & Co.

The oldest continuously trading firm of chronometer manufacturers in the world. Charles Frodsham was born in 1810 in London — son of William James Frodsham, co-founder of Parkinson & Frodsham — trained under his father, achieved second place in the 1830 Greenwich Premium Trials, founded his firm in 1834, and acquired John Arnold's original business a decade later. Founding member and Vice-President of the British Horological Institute; Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, serving as Master in 1855 and 1862. By the end of the 19th century, Frodsham was one of only two London firms still trading (the other being Dent). They made Rolls-Royce car clocks in the 1910s. Favoured watchmaker of J. Pierpont Morgan.

Today Charles Frodsham is owned by Philip Whyte and Richard Stenning, who bought it in the mid-1990s and have quietly run it ever since. 'We are not a brand. We don't do social media. We have no PR. We let other people do the talking.' Most of their business is restoring antique Frodsham clocks and pocket watches — but in the background, over 16 years, they developed the Double Impulse Chronometer Wristwatch (launched 2018). The first wristwatch to use the Daniels Double Impulse Chronometer Escapement — completely symmetrical, highly detached, oil-free — which George Daniels had previously only applied to pocket watches. It was Derek Pratt who convinced the Frodsham team to attempt the wristwatch application, and Frodsham also completed Derek Pratt's unfinished H4 Harrison replica in 2014. Seven watchmakers; movement almost entirely in-house; sapphire crystals, mainsprings, and O-rings from Switzerland; hairspring wire from Europe, overcoil formed by hand at Frodsham; jewels are new-old-stock rubies from old pocket watch stock. 43 jewels, 21,600vph, 36-hour power reserve, free-sprung balance with self-compensating hairspring and raised terminal curve; gold train wheels, black-polished steel components. 22k yellow gold, 18k rose/white gold, or stainless steel. 3-year waitlist. The first completely English-made mechanical wristwatch since Roger W. Smith's workshop over 50 years ago.

The fuller sweep of the firm's history deepens the story on both ends. In its Victorian heyday Frodsham supplied marine chronometers to the Royal Navy and precision regulators to astronomical observatories around the world; the company survived being bombed out of its premises in 1941, carried on through the 20th century making carriage and mantel clocks — including the 'Princess' clock presented to HRH Princess Elizabeth on her marriage in 1947 — and has occupied its gallery in London since 1996, alongside the workshops in the countryside where the watches are actually built. As for the Double Impulse Chronometer itself, the 42.2 mm case (10.5 mm tall across its sapphire crystals) is offered in London-hallmarked 22k yellow gold, 18k rose or white gold, or stainless steel, and each commission is quietly bespoke: buyers choose heat-blued Roman or Arabic applied numerals and may add historic Frodsham Royal Warrant cyphers to the vapour-deposited-signature white ceramic dial, whose equal-length hour and minute hands — read against an internal minute track — are a deliberate quirk borrowed from a Frodsham tourbillon pocket watch of the early 1900s. Rarities include a titanium example, a unique 22k 'Tribute to George Daniels' piece, and just two white gold cases made in the first years. With retail prices starting around £68,500 in steel and output of roughly a dozen watches a year, the secondary market has turned feverish: examples have sold for £150,000 at Phillips Perpetual, around $225,000 at Loupe This, CHF 317,500 for a pink gold example at the Phillips Geneva Watch Auction in November 2023, and as much as roughly $350,000 at auction — a multiple of retail that places the Double Impulse Chronometer among the most coveted English watches of the modern era.