Henry Williamson, Ltd. owned a large watch factory in Coventry, England. They manufactured various American style movements, most of which appear to have been three quarter plate.

Williamson owned the Swiss, Buren Watch Co. from 1898 until 1932. During Williamson’s ownership of Buren, substantial investments were made to the Swiss factory. The stock market crash of 1929 precipitated the demise of Williamson and the sale of the Buren watch Co.

During WWI, 1914-1918 Williamson provided a large number of 18 size, open faced, 7 jewel watches to the British Govt. They also provided 8 day aviation time pieces to the Admiralty and the Royal Flying Corps, which are far less common.

The 18 size, 7 jewel military pocket watches by H. Williamson, are not hard to find. These rugged watches have some variations which may be of interest.

The most common of the 7 jewel watch dials are either white porcelain with roman numerals or black painted brass with luminous hands and luminous arabic numbers. Another dial variation has the second hand bit at 9 in order to use hunting case movements in open faced cases.

Though the movements were made in Coventry, the dials are marked, “H. WILLIAMSON LTD LONDON” in two lines, along with the military issue number under the word, London.

The military issue number is found on the dial, on the outside edge of the case body and on the outside of the back cover under a broad arrow. This issue number is not the same as the movement serial number or the case maker’s number found inside these watchs.

Until recently, all of the 7 Jewel Williamson military watches I have observed were housed in nickle, British made, Dennison cases. But recently, I found one H. Williamson watch in an American made, screw back, nickle case. This case is marked inside, “Illinois Watch Case Co. Nickel Elgin U.S.A.” the case serial No. on the inside is 0581709. The case shows long use. As with the Williamson watches in Dennison made cases, the service number of this Williamson is the same on the dial, case rim, and case back. - “29454F”

Has anyone else observed an H. Williamson service watch in an American made case, or any other interesting Williamson variations they would like to report?

Best regards,

Greg

An image of the H.Williamson British service watch in an American made case

The movement:


Markings inside the case back"



Close up of the painted black dial, showing correct luminous hands:



Best regards,

Greg

Hi Greg,
Hope you find this watch interesting!

Made by 'Williamson, London Ltd' also, this one too was made in Coventry UK.
I checked the back side of the dial and there are no jewellers inscriptions, and just 'Williamson Ltd Coventry' on the movement backplate.

The dial is similar to your watch, but a tad mauled around the sub seconds and dial pivot areas, looks like careless 'hand removal' operations.
The dial is quite heavy brass and signed 'H.Williamson Ltd' over 'London' with the serial No below, of 23426F

The nickel Case is a Dennison, with srew back and bezel, stamped '1481'on the case body and bezel, and full serial No '191481' in the case back. The back is also stamped 'Made in England', Dennison Watch Case Co'

The movement is again similar to yours Greg, only mine has a broken mainspring. I've stripped the movement now and fortunately no train wheel teeth suffered when the spring broke, so it's largely a clean and lub job as it's all in decent condition, even the pivots and pivot holes.

It has had an interesting repair to the lever though, as it appears to have had two levers 'sown together' around the fork.
I've got an intel microscope so will post a shot of the lever 'repair' when I get a moment.
I won't be putting the lever back as it's fairly horrible as repairs go, so may have to make a fresh lever if I can't find one suitable, which will be 'interesting' to do!

Has anyone ever seen any of those pallet adjusting tools around at all? Possibly a bergeon product?

I was surprised that although it has a decent quality bi-metallic split compensation balance, timing screws, a breguet overcoil hairspring, fully jewelled balance and pallet stones, they never bothered jewelling the train at all!
Seems at odds somehow to see no train jewels with a decent escapement!
Perhaps the manufacturer believed it would compensate for the friction in the train? Who knows!

Enjoy!

Best Regards
John

H.Williamson Ltd London movement.

I thought the hour hand on my watch was a 'home brew' jobby until I saw those on the photo of yours ..... made me feel much better when I found the one that was left was original
The minute hand is in fact missing, but I can now take a pattern from your photo and make a replacement! Many thanks in advance for that gem!
Best regards
John

And the case back, will also post a shot of the inside if I can ever get a decent image of it!
Best regards
John

Fine images, John!

I’m glad to see you enjoy military pocket watches as well as those for the wrist. It’s great to see you are repairing the watch. Williamson movements were built to last. It also strikes me as odd about the lack of train jewels, but maybe that was an economy move during the Great War.

Given the large number of Williamson watches made, civil and military, you may have some luck finding a parts movement in the UK. As for a pallet warmer, those are not hard to find. Maybe check eBay for a watchmakers tool assortment and get some other cool stuff at the same time.

Thanks again for the images.

Best regards,

Greg

Thanks Greg, Hopefully I'll improve on the images some more once I've got used to the finer points of my camera.
I'm using a Pentax Optio 430RS in macro mode and 640x480 at the moment.

Pocket watches are more interesting to me than wrist types to be truthful .......... mostly because I can see all the bits better But in truth, I have no favourites at all, I just enjoy observing all the 'technical variations' on the same theme as they progressed and improved (and sometimes not) over the years.

I'd never seen another Williamson watch until I saw yours on the forum, not even on Ebay, but no doubt there will have been a few. Not sure if I'll ever find one suitable for parts.

A big problem I have, is that I can't bear to break a watch for parts, even when it really is a 'dead-un'! I always think "I'll fix that up one day, it'll be good practice"!! (sound familiar anyone?), so even if I did find a donor, I'd just take pity on it, lavish it with loving attention, and try breathing life into it again.

Best regards
John

Great thread! I have an old 1917 British Webley like Greg used in his photo earlier, just need a nice Williamson watch to go with it.

New addition for me and to add to the list in this old thread. Any more out there?

Rear case

side case markings

I was hoping for a little help on something I found interesting while surfing the web. There is a website that sells many military style timepieces and has a black dialed version very much like the one the MR. Crockett posted in the beginning of this thread. The watch is mounted on some sort of stand and the watch looks like it is able to swivel on some sort of axis. Also the seller of this watch mentions that the movement was made by the LeCoultre Watch Company who was commissioned by the MOD at this time to produce timepieces for the war effort. He states that one can tell it is a LeCoultre movement because is is "delineated by its "F" mark" on the dial and case. He also mentions that the stand was custom made by the Dennison Watch Case Company. Anyone heard or seen anything like this? I thought the movements were made by the H. Williamson Ltd in Coventry England. Is this true? Especially regarding the "F" mark meaning LeCoultre. Any ideas or thoughts.
www.oldwristwatches.com
Pocket watch section page 2
listed as "1918 Men's LeCoultre Pocket Watch "
Thanks all!

hi; can you post a link to the watch you are describing on the military website? thanks,Tom

I am sorry the link will not post for some reason. The website is www.oldwristwatches.com

Then go to the pocket watch section and the watch is listeon page 2 of the pocketwatch section. The name of the posted watch is given as 1918 Men's Lecoutre pocket watch.

Here is the webpage with that black face watch.

Black face watch

From what I see, the stand is just an aftermarket thing that was added by someone along the way. It does not look in anyway functional to the original military use.

The British military used letter designations in the serial numbers of their timepieces to designate the company from which a particular contract was being filled since they had contracts with a large number of companies to provide all the watches they needed. I do not know which company is which with the single letters as my studies have been on the double letters. The letter F may very well be the code letter for Le Coultre. What I also know, though, is that over the last hundred years of any pocket watch's life many things could have happened, and even more so in the life of a military pocket watch that by definition has had a hard life and many trips to the watchmakers to keep it going. In all of this time and trips to a watchmaker, it is possible that not only did a few minor parts get replaced, but sometimes entire movements were replaced so unless there is a name on the movement itself, the expectation that the movement in such a watch matches the letter code is kind of sketchy at best and could be wishful thinking when the maker is a well known one and they did not put their name on their own movement. Of course, this watch may very well be original as is, but I am one of those guys who want some proof.

hi Michael; yes , I saw it. I used your phraseology and Googled it and found the watch. They seem to be a large well established firm so they could very well be spot on about the watch then I found this chart on the WWW watches,the famous "Dirty dozen"!!! Why would JLC have had a different code letter for their pocket watches than they did for their wrist watches? "F" was the code letter for JLC wristwatches ,it seems logical it might be the same for pocket watch movements as well. On the other hand, the movement pattern is British for sure. Now JLC could have produced movements to the British pattern,but I still have my doubts!!! That said it would be better if the movement was marked,one way or the other , and it may yet be,under the dial!!!


Maker Letter Code Pieces Produced Source
Buren H 11,000 estimate
Cyma P 20.000 estimate
Eterna P 5.000 estimate
Grana M 1.000 – 1.500 estimate
IWC M 6.000 IWC archive
JLC F 10.000 JLC archive
Lemania Q 8.000 estimate
Longines F 5.000 estimate
Omega Y 25.000 Omega archive
Record L 25.000 estimate
Timor K 13.000 estimate
Vertex A 15.000 estimate
Table 3: Production numbers of W.W.W.
(with thanks to Thomas Koenig and Adrian van der Meijden)

Seems strange that my H Williamson (white dialed above) is marked with the letter "F" as well and this dial has the sub second at the thre position. This was when H Williamson was using their stock hunter case style watches in the begining of the war. Is this correct? Is my watch possibly a H. Williamson dialed, LeCoultre Movement with a Dennison Case? WOW!!! who can keep up!

a picture of the movement please???

Here is one:

Another:

Why not one more?