Take a quick survey of innovation in watchmaking and there is something unexpected that unites the balance spring, the repeating watch movement, the lever escapement, the chronometer, the self-winding mechanism and the co-axial escapement. They are all British inventions. And yet the British watch industry today? Nowhere to be seen, although brands such as Bremont are making a good effort to bring it back. Similar tales might be told of watchmaking in, say, France, or of the pioneering of mass production in the United States.
