Today, watches are more or less universal, folded into phones and fitness trackers or strapped to wrists of all kinds. And yet, not too long ago, in the 19th century, different ways of wearing time were sharply gendered and coded.
For men, pocket watches coordinated time. Railways depended on standardised pocket watches to prevent collisions and make timetables possible at all. The logic of precise, shared time leaked into other social contexts. Catching the right train, showing up to court on time, and making a meeting at the exact time would not be possible without a decent watch. Lawyers, bankers, and other men from affluent social strata were expected to own reliable watches because punctuality was part of their credibility. Being “a man of his word” meant, among other things, being a man who would show up on time.
Meanwhile, for women, time was more likely to appear as jewellery: pendants, chatelaines, and later bracelet‑watches encrusted in precious stones, pieces of ornament first and instrument second.
In 1810, Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples and the younger sister of Napoleon Bonaparte, asked Abraham‑Louis Breguet, a most innovative Parisian watchmaker, for an “oblong repeater for bracelet,” a slim watch shaped to her wrist and woven into a bracelet of hair and gold. The original Breguet No. 2639 is lost, but watches in the Breguet Reine de Naples line still look more like jewelled cuffs than tools, with egg-shaped cases and dials set in mother-of-pearl.
About fifty years later, Patek Philippe, a Geneva‑based watchmaker long regarded as one of the finest in the world, sold an ornate gold bracelet watch to Countess Koscowicz of Hungary. It held a small rectangular movement hidden under a black enamel lid decorated with rose‑cut diamonds, so that to anyone looking, it was simply a piece of jewellery; the fact that it also kept time was almost a secret.
Image Credit: www.thejewelleryeditor.com
But no matter what gender, owning a watch in those days was a kind of performance. The pocket watch did the talking: who could afford fine engraving and heavy gold cases, how long the pocket chain was, and what little seals, keys, or crests swung from it as its owner moved. The wristwatch could be used for its own choreography. At social gatherings, a lifted hand or a turn toward the light could showcase a piece of jewellery that compressed wealth into a single flashy gesture, one that other socialites, both ancien and nouveau riche, were trained to read.
So, how did the wristwatch go from a piece of feminine jewellery to a universally accepted item? The answer, as is often the case with social and technological shifts, is war. The pocket watch, with its gentlemanly ritual of extraction and consultation, was perfect for a world of steam trains and bank schedules. It was hopelessly ill-suited for the combats and mud of the 20th century.
A common claim states that in 1880 Girard-Perregaux made about 2,000 wristwatches for Kaiser Wilhelm I’s naval officers; however, archival evidence is scarce, and the German Navy has no records or photos confirming it.
The British Soldiers in the Second Boer War (1899–1902) began strapping their pocket watches to their wrists using leather “wristlets”, straps fitted with a small cup to hold the watch in place. This hybrid was born of the realisation that, in battle, fumbling with a pocket watch under enemy fire while holding maps, signalling flags or rifles is not exactly ideal.
The transition to the Western Front in 1914 forced an immediate redesign of military equipment. Trench warfare was fast-paced and mechanistic, requiring mobility that the 19th-century uniform couldn’t provide. As the military moved away from heavy greatcoats to trench coats and vestless uniforms, soldiers lost the traditional waist pockets needed for a pocket watch.
Another reason for adopting wristwatches was the creeping barrage, a high-stakes strategy designed to break the trench stalemate. Since defenders could wait out hours of standard shelling in deep bunkers, the creeping barrage provided a moving wall of smoke and explosions to cover advancing foot soldiers. Both the artillery and infantry advanced in prearranged increments, usually at a pace of 50 meters per minute, allowing the infantry to reach the enemy line before machine guns could be manned.
The margin for error was nonexistent. Moving too slowly left soldiers as “sitting ducks” in no-man’s land, while moving too fast meant walking directly into their own artillery fire. When this coordination failed, as it did on the first day of the Somme, the result was a massacre. Without reliable radio communication, a soldier’s only lifeline was the synchronisation of his watch with guns located further away.
Success required rigid discipline, as seen during the 1917 “Vimy Glide” battle. Unlike the frantic 50-meters-per-minute pace of other battles, the Canadians utilised a much slower, more deliberate advance of 100 yards (approximately 91 metres) every three minutes. As noted in the Canadian Capture of Vimy Ridge, Canadian Corps commander Lt. Gen. Sir Julian Byng told his men bluntly: “Chaps, you shall go over exactly like a railroad train, on the exact time, or you shall be annihilated.”
The creeping barrage strategy eventually declined during WWII, as the development of portable radios enabled real-time communication between the front lines and artillery.
Crucially, wristwatches were not issued by the British Army until World War II. In the Great War, every watch on a soldier’s wrist was a private purchase. For a standard infantry private earning just a few shillings a day, a decent silver trench watch costing between £2 and £4 was an immense investment, often representing two to three months of wages. Wristwatch sales exploded because, to no one’s surprise, soldiers tend not to cheapen out on life-saving tools.
“The 1916 Annual General Meeting of H. Williamson Ltd [a British manufacturer] was told that:
The public is buying the practical things of life. Nobody can truthfully contend that the watch is a luxury. In these days the watch is as necessary as a hat—more so, in fact. One can catch trains and keep appointments without a hat, but not without a watch. It is said that one soldier in every four wears a wristlet watch, and the other three mean to get one as soon as they can. Wristlet watches are not luxuries; wedding-rings are not luxuries. These are the two items jewellers have been selling in the greatest quantities for many months past.”Anthony Turner – A General History of Horology, chapter eighteen
Officers were better positioned, using their £50 kit allowance to pprioritisea reliable timepiece alongside their revolver and uniform.
Image Credit: Internet Archive
Social perceptions were soon challenged as officers and soldiers in uniform were coming home on their leaves wearing wristwatches.
In December 1917, the Horological Journal noted that the ‘… wristlet watch was little used by the sterner sex before the war, but now is seen on the wrist of nearly every man in uniform and of many men in civilian attire.’
Anthony Turner – A General History of Horology, chapter eighteen
And after the Great War ended, thousands of veterans continued to wear wristwatches, valuing both the high price they had paid for them and the faithful service in battle.
While the Great War proved the wristwatch’s utility, World War II transformed it into a standard piece of government-issued equipment. In 1944, the British Ministry of Defence commissioned the “Dirty Dozen”, tasked twelve Swiss watchmakers with producing watches to the strict W.W.W. (Watch, Wrist, Waterproof) specification, setting the template for military-grade watch specifications.
But the pocket watch did not disappear entirely. It retained niche appeal among vintage or steampunk enthusiasts and collectors, as well as for formal wear on special occasions. It’s curious, isn’t it, how quickly yesterday’s relics can become tomorrow’s novelties.
In a strange twist, the rise of the smartphone has only highlighted the wristwatch’s resilience. When we fish a phone to check the time, we are inadvertently repeating the very 19th-century ritual that 20th-century soldiers fought to escape. Smartwatches are yet another trend that blends utility (reading the time with a quick glance) with technology.
Whatever innovations lie ahead, the wristwatch will likely continue to reflect our own shifting relationship with the world, perhaps because it is the only universal machine so far that manages to be both a tool and an extension of the body.