George Daniels

The greatest British watchmaker of the 20th century and one of the most consequential figures in the entire history of horology. Born in 1926 in the East End of London to poverty — the second of eleven children, putting to work assembling mattress springs as a boy — he was entirely self-taught. After serving in WWII, he enrolled at Northampton Polytechnic for evening watchmaking classes in 1949. He mastered 32 of the 34 disciplines required to craft a watch by hand, and proceeded to make approximately 30 pocket and wristwatches in his lifetime — every single component made by hand from raw material.

His supreme achievement: the co-axial escapement — invented in 1974 (with Derek Pratt assisting), patented 1980 — the first significant mechanical advancement in portable timekeeping since the lever escapement of 1759, described by many as the most important development in horology in 250 years. It replaces sliding friction with rolling and pushing action for dramatically reduced wear and superior isochronism. After a decade of rejections from Patek Philippe and others, Nicolas Hayek of Swatch Group recognised its potential; Omega has held exclusive rights since 1999 and has produced millions of co-axial movements. Daniels also invented the independent double-wheel escapement (1974, used in the Space Traveller). Key works: Wristwatch No.1 (1969); Space Traveller I (1982, solar and sidereal time with independent gear trains, $4.6 million at Sotheby's 2019 — world record for an English watch); Grand Complication (1987, the most complicated watch ever featuring his co-axial — tourbillon, minute repeater, perpetual calendar, equation of time, moon phase, thermometer — Daniels wore it daily until his death); Millennium Watch (1998, 54 pieces with Roger W. Smith); Co-Axial Anniversary (2009, 35 pieces, produced by Smith). He is also the world's greatest authority on Breguet and author of the definitive reference work. He mentored Roger W. Smith, choosing him as his sole professional heir. He died on the Isle of Man in 2011, aged 85, having never stopped making watches. His estate was valued at £21 million.

Daniels's influence radiates far beyond his own bench. Each of his watches consumed some 2,500 hours of work, and the trajectory of his first — made in 1969 for his friend and champion Sam Clutton for £2,000, bought back by Daniels for £8,000 five years later, and eventually sold at American auction for $285,000 — traces the market's awakening to what he was. His 1981 book 'Watchmaking' laid out his entire method from raw material to finished watch with, as he put it, no secrets or mysteries; it remains in print in its revised edition and has served as the founding manual for a generation of independents — Roger Smith famously built his first two watches from it alone — while his 1975 study of Breguet remains the definitive reference and his autobiography 'All in Good Time' completes the record. In 2010 he received the CBE, the only watchmaker ever honoured as 'Master Watchmaker, for services to Horology.' His other great passion was engineering on four wheels and two: he raced vintage cars until the authorities gently retired him on grounds of age, and his collection — crowned by the ex-Tim Birkin 1929 supercharged Bentley 4½-Litre single-seater that set the Brooklands Outer Circuit lap record at over 137 mph in 1931, alongside a Works Le Mans 1932 Alfa Romeo 8C — was sold by Bonhams at Goodwood in 2012. That November, Sotheby's dispersed part of his horological collection in a 134-lot sale that raised over £8 million for the George Daniels Educational Trust, which continues to fund students of horology, engineering, and medicine — so that the self-taught boy from the East End, who owned nothing and learned everything, now pays for others to learn in perpetuity.