The first
Watch, a timepiece small enough to be either worn on a wrist
or carried around by a person, is thought to have been made around
1500, when the invention of the mainspring made portable clocks possible.
To maintain a constant speed as the mainspring ran down, a fusee (a
cord wound round a conical barrel) was used. In recent times, of course,
a small battery has replaced the mainspring as a source of energy.
Another modern development has been the possibility of placing the
traditional analog display (with a face and rotating hands) by a liquid
crystal display (LCD) face. Over the years, several different kinds
of watches have emerged, the most common of which is the wrist watch
(worn on a wristband). The first ever wrist watch was made in 1904
by the French jewelry house, Cartier, which made it for the aviator
Alberto Santos-Dumont, who found it hard to use a fob watch while
flying. The round cornered square watch can still be bought today.
Because they are practical to wear and are easy to read even when
the wearer’s hands are otherwise engaged, wrist watches have
been the most popular type of watch since the First World War. Normally
quite utilitarian in design, some have been dressed up in gold and
gems to resemble jewelry. More old-fashioned types of watch include
the pocket (of fob) watch, which men used to carry in the pocket of
their waistcoat; and the pendant watch, which women used to wear in
the same way as a necklace pendant. A lapel watch was attached to
jacket or dress lapel by either being suspended from a brooch or fixed
on to the end of a stud that went through the lapel buttonhole. The
last type is the watch ring, which involved a watch being set in the
bezel of a ring.
