John Arnold

Who was John Arnold?

John Arnold was an English watchmaker and inventor.

John Arnold was the first to design a watch that was both practical and accurate, and also brought the term "Chronometer" into use in its modern sense, meaning a precision timekeeper. His technical advances enabled the quantity production of Marine Chronometers for use on board ships from around 1782. The basic design of these, with a few modifications unchanged until the late twentieth century. With regard to his legacy one can say that both he and Abraham-Louis Breguet largely invented the modern mechanical watch. Certainly one of his most important inventions, the Overcoil balance spring is still to be found in most mechanical wrist watches to this day.

It is necessary to point out that the brand name Arnold & Son used by a Swiss watch company has absolutely no connection to the original firm founded by John Arnold.

It was from around 1770 that Arnold developed the portable precision timekeeper, almost from the point where John Harrison ended his work in this field. But compared to Harrison's complicated and expensive watch, Arnold's basic design was simple whilst consistently accurate and mechanically reliable.