Posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on December 13, 2008 at 20:25:14 user ACB.
In Reply to: Re: Captain John's Chronometer and Barometer posted by Peter H on December 13, 2008 at 18:47:58:
If you think it is an AR topic I will carry on with it.
We have a £2 wristwatch and a 5s. pocket watch, in the 20's.
(I will, however, try to avoid a sisterhookish descent into horology on the distinction between jewelled pallets as opposed to pin pallets on the one hand and a jewelled movement and the extent thereof on the other - jewelled pin pallet lever movements were not uncommon.)
There is not much evidence that John does carry his watch with him. He leaves in his tent in SA during the expedition to the Amazon River.
As I wrote earlier, "The first child's wrist watch, featuring a well-known Mouse, appeared in 1935, and that was also the first year in which Switzerland exported more wrist watches than pocket watches.
"I therefore think that the sort of watch that would have been given to a child (a cheap one!) would have been a pocket watch, but the comparatively affluent Blacketts might have sprung for a wrist watch for Nancy by the date when SW was written."
In SD, as allym has pointed out,Peggy holds the Amazon's watch in her hand as does Captain Flint (pp418-9, Cape edn). i.e., these were pocket watches. In modern dinghy racing, the countdown watch is worn on the wrist (or occasionally on the boom...) which leaves both hands free.