It´s unusual to find a British Military watch with provenance, but I was lucky, I found this Ehrhardt Deck Watch. The last time it was mentioned, it was in an accompanying letter to the Astronomer Royal, at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich...

Unusual centre-seconds Deck Watch with admiralty history. Heavy silver case hallmarked Birmingham 1904-5, casemaker WE (Ehrhardt). Three-quarter plate movement jewelled to the 3rd (centre), the top plate engraved with the Broad Arrow mark. Single-roller detached lever escapement, balance-spring with overcoil. Single sunk signed and numbered enamel dial, also with the Broad Arrow mark, gold and blued-steel centre-seconds hands. 56 mm diameter.

William Ehrhardt (1831-1897), Time Works, Barr Street, Hockley, Birmingham, the business continued by his two sons William and Gustave, pioneers of machine-made watch production in England and suppliers of many Deck Watches to the Royal Navy. One of the least known but most interesting English watchmakers of his time, a pioneer of advanced manufacturing techniques and holder of UK Patents.

The watch apparantly came from the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship "Peerleaf"

This is what was documented on the ship

Ehrhardt RFA Pearleaf (Royal Fleet Auxiliary)
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Here is an excerpt from the history of RFA Pearleaf that I found on the web. Seems like the crew were 'on the make' in those days -

20 October 1921 Junior Engineer John Walter Edward Drake RFA appeared before the Marine Court, Hong Kong charged with neglect of duty in that it was alleged that at 01:00 18 October 1921 in Hong Kong Harbour he had absented himself from the engine room, the Fireman on watch did not know where the Junior Engineer was and Drake was found by the Chief Engineer and 2nd Engineer on the poop asleep. Junior Engineer Drake pleaded Not guilty alleging the Chief Engineer was drunk. He was however convicted and fined $50 or four weeks imprisonment

10 June 1937 on arrival at Hong Kong the ship was searched and a quantity for forged currency was discovered in the possession of the Chief Cook Woo Ah Noy

7 October 1937 Mr J Paton RFA appointed as Chief Engineer Officer

19 May 1938 at 0200 hrs Customs officers keeping watch on the Pearleaf in Singapore Naval Base saw nine sacks of opium being lowered from the ship into a sampan. The sampan crew were later arrested after they jumped in the water. The drugs valued at $23,880 were seized. The two under arrest were sentenced to 19 months rigorous imprisonment on 28 May 1938 at Singapore Criminal District Court.

Previous name: Gypol
Subsequent name:
Official Number: 140269

Class: 5000T FAST LEAF (ex TEXOL) CLASS Fleet Attendant Tanker

Pennant No: X 57 / Y7.180 / X 56

Laid down:
Builder: Gray, West Hartlepool
Launched: 12 September 1916
Into Service: March 1917
Out of service: 1946
Fate: Broken up

Items of historic interest involving this ship: -

Background Data:

All ordered in 1915, the six Admiralty-designed vessels in this Class were very advanced ships for their day. They were designed to act as Escorts on Atlantic Convoys during WW1, whilst also bringing cargoes of oil fuel from the U.S. to Britain. They were fitted with six boilers and four powerful cargo pumps with a pumping rate of 2000 tonnes per hour, which for many years was too high to be used by HM ships. They were originally planned to be named after oil bearing countries with the now usual OL suffix, but their military appearance and naval names caused difficulties with the U.S. Neutrality Act, so various modifications were made and they were then placed under commercial management and given LEAF names in common with other converted ships running as Admiralty tankers under commercial management

Wonderful timepiece Werner you have there as always. Your contributions to this website are spectacular and always interesting. I look forward more drooling. M

Gotta tell you Werner, you find the most interesting items. I love reading your informative and most descriptive posts.

The watch, the research, the photography, what a fantastic combination.
I thank you.

Werner,

I can't add anymore to the other comments, I only can say thank you for the interesting post! If only more data such as this could be found.

Best regards,
Greg