Dr. George Daniels

From the Beeb website - breathtaking skills:

**LINK**

rgds

Bill

I would recommend that you look out for the watchmakers apprentice, which is a documentary about George Daniels and Roger Smith. It was on Netflix but I think they have taken it down now. It shows in some detail how exacting their work really is.

David

From the linked story:

"Dr Daniels, who died in 2011, was the first person in the world to make every component of a watch from scratch and by hand."

Surely not? Or am I missing something?

As far as i am aware George Daniels did not make his own springs. In one of his videos I seem to remember that he claimed to carry out most of the 30 odd tasks and skills needed to complete his 37 watches and 2 clocks made during his working lifetime.

GD was a most interesting man who makes one think that there may be more to reincarnation than we usually think in the western world......his whole extraordinary life is something of an enigma with many unexplained oddities.

As well as the documentaries there is a fascinating collection of short videos made by Roger Smith where GD talks to camera for a few minutes about various aspects of his life including his very humble childhood in fairly drastic poverty...his discovery of a broken clock in the street.......his discovery that his 'father' was not really his blood father......that his birth was never registered......his army service repairing typewriters....his lifelong love of Bentley cars....and much much more.

Despite his origins in a family which had no furniture or food, GD became a seemingly most aristocratic man of both considerable wealth and great bearing and taste. Roger Smiths little videos are (I think) still on Youtube, some 60 short vids which are well worth a look in any spare moments.

.

That is, I agree, rather a sweeping claim, Hopper.

It's probably safer to say that he was the first to make "every component of a watch of such complexity ..."

It was standard practice for various components to be made by specialists and then the watch would be completed by a finisher.

His greatest gift to us was the magnificent book "Watchmaking" ... in which he actually explains how to do the work.

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 30/09/2017 08:51:09

Shameless plug:

George Daniels was a long-time member, founder, president of the South London Branch of the BHI where many of his colleagues are still members.

If anything about George or watchmaking is of interest to you then you should make a note of coming to the next brach open day Sat 14th April 2018 http://slbbhi.co.uk/?page_id=1699 where you can find people who can talk about such things, live demonstrations, fee refreshments, and hopefully Bob!

I think the claim is that he did all tasks except 2. I think one is springs like Bob says although he does go through how to make hairsprings in his book. I think the other was glass. Not bad though. Was he the first? So far no one else has put their name forward as far as I know.

Shameless plug assist....

If the South London BHI 'open day' is anthing like the first event last year then it will be a brilliant day that nobody with a clock fetish should miss!.....I can't wait!