Straddling the 17th and 18th centuries, the city of London was a bubbling cauldron of scientific ambition and a desire for innovation, particularly in the field of horology. It was there that George Graham was able to give free rein to his immense talent as a watchmaker, and offer the world his high-precision watchmaking mechanisms. Generous and altruistic, the man affectionately known as “Honest George” sought neither money nor fame: his sole focus was the advancement of science and the benefits humanity could derive from it.

George Graham: The Heart’s Mechanics

George Graham’s life is inseparable from that of the man who was his mentor and friend, Thomas Tompion. Initially a collaborator of Tompion from 1695, Graham later became his partner (around 1711) before succeeding him after the master’s death. By marrying one of his mentor’s nieces, Elizabeth, in 1696, he also became a member of the family. Their professional and friendly relationship was so intimate and strong that, upon his death, Graham was buried alongside Tompion in Westminster Abbey, an honor traditionally reserved for individuals of high birth.

Did Graham find a surrogate father in Tompion? It was, in any case, after the death of his own father that he left his hometown of Kirklinton, where he was born on July 7, 1673, into a Quaker family. At 15, having moved to London, he became an apprentice to Henry Aske for seven years. His work was so impressive that it attracted the attention of the renowned Thomas Tompion, an eminent watchmaker famous for manufacturing serialized, numbered watches. Graham joined him in 1695, thus beginning a long history of collaboration and friendship. The young man benefited both from his mentor’s influence and the exceptional context of London at that time – the place to be for anyone with an interest, however slight, in watchmaking mechanisms.

When Tompion died in 1713, he entrusted Graham, by will, with the reins of his business. Completely free to act, Graham effectively combined his taste for innovation and his precision watchmaking technique to improve existing mechanisms (such as the “pig’s snout” escapement) and create his own novelties – thus, in 1715, the deadbeat escapement, and in 1726 the mercury pendulum. His keen interest in astronomy also led him to design precision instruments in this field, notably the “astronomical sector” still visible at the Greenwich Observatory.

But for George Graham, clocks were not an end in themselves. The man was driven by a powerful mechanics of the heart, which made him one of the most generous and altruistic scientists of his time. Not only did he not seek to profit from his inventions, to which he granted total free access, but he also contributed to the funding of young talents around him. Thus, on the very day he was introduced to John Harrison, after several hours discussing clocks and pendulums, Graham concluded this first meeting by granting his young colleague an interest-free loan so that he could continue his research towards the development of the H1 marine chronometer. Subsequently, he did not hesitate to introduce Harrison to the Board of Longitude and to request additional financial support for him.

Buried in the same tomb as his friend and mentor Thomas Tompion, in Westminster, after his death on November 16, 1751, Graham would become a benchmark name in the history of horology.

His Inventions

Though few in number, George Graham’s inventions were nonetheless decisive.

• 1915: Invention of the deadbeat escapement for pendulums, known as the “Graham escapement”. This escapement is still used in high-precision clocks.
• 1925: Improvement of the “pig’s snout” escapement. This escapement, the first cylinder escapement in history, is sometimes wrongly attributed to Graham. In reality, he “only” improved it and integrated it into one of his clocks in 1715, but it was Thomas Tompion who developed it and used it in a clock made for Jonas Moore, as well as in two regulators built for the Greenwich Observatory. From 1726, it equipped all watches manufactured by Graham.
• 1926: Invention of the mercury pendulum, known as the “Graham pendulum”. It reduces the effects of temperature variations. The extreme degree of precision achieved by this mechanism, when combined with the Graham escapement, gives these clocks the name “regulators”. Only Invar, developed by Charles Edouard Guillaume in 1895, would surpass the precision of the mercury pendulum.

Graham also designed several astronomical viewing instruments, such as the “astronomical sector,” and contributed to the prestige of this discipline. Beyond his inventions that accompanied James Bradley in his celestial discoveries, Graham is credited with the vast mural quadrant of the Greenwich Observatory, conceived and manufactured at the request of Edmond Halley, as well as the largest planetarium of his time, which displayed the most precise movements of celestial bodies of the era.

Graham, a Name That Continues to Resonate

Like many inventors of his time, George Graham was comfortable in multiple disciplines. This is why he is also credited with discoveries in geophysics, such as that of the diurnal variation of the Earth’s magnetic field (around 1722/23), and the fact that this phenomenon is the origin of the aurora borealis. He also designed compass needles, widely used by specialists of the era.

Despite his entry into the Royal Society in 1721, the twenty or so articles he published in the institution’s scientific journal, and his numerous contributions to various fields, George Graham’s name somewhat fell into oblivion when the nerve center of global horology shifted from England to Switzerland. It is to the two Swiss entrepreneurs Eric Loth and Pierre-André Finazzi, founders of British Masters in 1995, that we owe the revival of the Graham name – alongside other forgotten British master watchmakers – through a collection of high-quality watches (more details here).