Harwood the world's first self-winding wristwatch Historical historical item of museum value

The case of this watch is silver. The bracelet is steel. Watch serviced in 2025 year.

A historical background on the watch Harwood, it deserves it.

Perrelet and Breguet:

The history of automatic winding in pocket watches begins in the 18th century. At that time, all watches were pocket watches, case size was unimportant, and the mainspring could be massive, lasting several days. Despite this, the idea of not winding a watch at all haunted engineers.

Attempts to create watches that were wound automatically by the movement of their owner date back to the second half of the 18th century. Abraham-Louis Perrelet, a watchmaker from Neuchâtel, Switzerland, achieved the greatest success. Current historiography attributes the invention and production of the first commercially available automatic watches to him. This happened in the late 1777. It was from this year that the term "automatic winding" appeared in watchmaking.

In that same year, 1777, another Abraham-Louis Breguet also began experimenting with automatic winding. However, the mechanism proved too complex and expensive. It wasn't until 1779, when he came across a Perrelet watch, that he was able to create another automatic winding mechanism, "in its image and likeness," but with some improvements. Based on this design, Breguet produced his own automatic winding movements until 1810.

Besides the famous Perrelet and Breguet, several other watchmakers were also exploring the concept of automatic winding at the same time.

The full history of the emergence of automatic winding in pocket watches is not the topic of this article; the above is provided to document the initial introduction of this concept. It can only be noted that automatic winding in pocket watches never really caught on.

Harwood, bumper mechanism:

More than a hundred years passed, or rather, almost 150 years, and in 1926, in Basel, FORTIS introduced the first HARWOOD wristwatch with an automatic winding mechanism.

The story behind this watch is as follows. In 1923, English watchmaker John Harwood decided to design a watch that would be dust- and water-resistant. Harwood was a watchmaker, not a movement maker, but a repairman. He knew well that the main causes of watch failure were (and still are) dust, water, dirt, and corrosion. Harwood set himself the goal of creating a watch that would be essentially free of all these.

Those who have disassembled used watches have seen for themselves that dirt and water enter the watch primarily through the winding mechanism, or more precisely, through the opening for the winding stem. It was this hole, along with the winding and adjusting mechanism in its traditional form, that John Harwood attempted to eliminate. And he succeeded. And it was the automatic winding mechanism that helped him achieve this.

The watch is small, just 29mm in diameter. By modern standards, it's a woman's watch.

The first thing you notice is the lack of a crown. Actually, the logic is simple. The watch is self-winding, so there's no need to wind it manually. The hands are set by rotating the bezel. The bezel has two positions, which are displayed by an indicator window located at 6 o'clock. If the indicator is red, the bezel is in the neutral position and the watch is in normal operation. By rotating the bezel in either direction, the watch enters the hands-advance mode. The indicator turns white, and further rotation of the bezel in the selected direction advances the hands. To return the bezel to the neutral position, simply rotate it slightly in the opposite direction, and the indicator will switch back to red. The watch's operating algorithm is very clear and simple.

Thus, by eliminating the winding stem and crown, Harwood automatically eliminated the hated hole in the watch case. Goal achieved!

Harwood used the concept of a so-called bumper (or hummer) automatic winding mechanism in his watches.

The rotor (1) rotates around a central axis (2). The rotor does not complete a full revolution, but is held in place by stops or bumpers (3) against a stop (4). The automatic winding mechanism itself is located under the bridge (5) next to the stop. The automatic winding mechanism is unidirectional, meaning the spring is wound only when the rotor rotates clockwise. The reverse winding is idle. The overwinding protection mechanism (6) operates using friction and is located around the rotor's axis (2).

The rotor's rotation angle is approximately 180 degrees. A full winding cycle lasts for 12 hours of continuous operation. In my watch, due to time and wear, the winding lasts for 6-8 hours.

Bumper automatic winding mechanisms are characterized by sensitive shocks that are transmitted to the wearer's wrist during movement. Because the rotor is quite heavy, when the stopper meets the bridge, a rather heavy "boom" is heard, striking the wearer's hand. This is the origin of this mechanism's nickname, "hummer."

John Harwood designed his automatic winding mechanism and the layout of his watch in 1923. That same year, he filed a patent for this mechanism in England, and in 1924, in Switzerland. Harwood managed to interest Adolph Schild S.A. (a movement manufacturer) and FORTIS (a watch manufacturer) in his invention. Three years later, in 1926, FORTIS presented the first automatic wristwatch, named HARWOOD, at the Basel Fair.

The watch, incidentally, was positioned as prestigious and was quite expensively finished.

HARWOOD watches were mass-produced from 1928 to 1931. A total of approximately 30,000 (according to other sources, approximately 50,000) pieces were produced. John Harwood's company, Harwood Self Winding Watch Co. Inc., handled the sales and marketing of these watches in England. The company name can be found on the movement.

In 1931, Harwood Self-Winding Watch Co. Inc. went bankrupt during the Great Depression. Harwood lacked the funds to renew the patents, and many other manufacturers, even renowned ones like Omega and Jaeger LeCoultre, began to replicate the bumper-type movements in their watches. Watches with bumper-type movements remained in production until the 1960s.

Harwood and Rolex: Who Was First?

"What about Rolex?" you ask. Surely everyone knows that Rolex was the first to invent the automatic winding mechanism in wristwatches?

Well, not exactly.

In 1931, Rolex launched the "first automatic wristwatch" with great fanfare. Let me remind you that Harwood had already made at least 30,000 of his watches by that time.

But Rolex was still first. First to develop rotor-winding movements for wristwatches. The Rolex movement (Rolex caliber 620) was the first wristwatch to feature a rotor that rotated a full 360 degrees, without bumpers, stops, or shocks.

They say the first Rolex self-winding prototypes were built using Harwood movements. Whether this is true or not is unclear. But it's an undeniable fact that the first Rolex caliber 620 was heavily influenced by Harwood's work.

By releasing the Rolex Oyster Perpetual with the caliber 620, Rolex announced to the world that they had, in fact, invented the self-winding movement in a wristwatch! And they kept telling everyone this story for a long time. It was something like, "First Perrelet, then Rolex." (Photo from the advertising brochure in the photo album).

However, in the end they were forced to officially apologize to Harwood (Photo in album).

An Unknown Inventor Harwood:

John Harwood was born in Bolton, Lancashire, England, in 1883.

We know undeservedly little about him. There are only two photographs of him online (one of them in an album).

He was apparently quite a gifted inventor. His inventions included an impact screwdriver and a watch winder, now known as a winder.

John Harwood died in 1964 at the age of 81 in a car accident.