The Expanding HandHenricus Jones

The Expanding HandHenricus Jones, London, circa 1678. A unique and highly important silver pair-cased watch with early balance spring with 'Barrow' regulator and expandable minute hand. Outer: two-body, brass with silver rims, shagreen covered, back and bezel decorated with silver pinwork, square hinge. Inner: two-body, polished, shutter for the winding aperture. Notes This exceptional watch combines all of the latest technological advances of its period: the use of the newly invented balance spring, the Barrow regulator, the minute and hour hand when most watches had a single hour hand, and lastly, the expandable minute hand which shortens or lengthens according to its position on the oval dial. A German watch with an expanding hand, also dating from the 17th century, is known to exist, and a variation of this system was used by Le Roy on a clock dating fromhe early 18th century. A 'scissor' pattern hand was also used by Anthony on a very few watches for the Chinese market.The watch is published in H. Mariot, 'Watches', vol. 1, pl. H8 and in 'Watches' by Cecil Clutton and George Daniels, New York, 1965, fig. 193.Jones Henricuswas a highly respected maker of often very individual clocks as well as watches. He was apprenticed to both Benjamin Hill and Edward East, became a Freeman of the Clockmakers' Company in 1663, and Master in 1691. He is recorded in the Baillie as making oval watch with minute hand varying in lenght to follow the oval, prevously in the Gélis