The present watch is part of a small series of tourbillon watches made by Smith & Sons at the beginning of the 20th century, however believed to be the only one with an Earnshaw-type spring detent escapement instead of the better known lever variant. The movement was supplied by Nicole Nielsen, who, towards the end of the Victorian era and for the first 30 years of the 20th century, crafted some of the finest and most complicated English watches ever made.

This superior English chronometer from the period features a spring detent escapement, superbly finished tourbillon carriage, the double overcoiled free-sprung balance spring almost exclusively reserved for watches destined for Observatory trials, and reversed fusee to equalize the torque on the escapement without excessive wear on the center wheel bushing (not to be confused with inverse fusee). To protect the revolving escapement, the makers installed a guard plate along the barrel, a very rare feature used only in the most important watches.

The reasoning behind the ouststanding finishing of the watch is doubtlessly the fact that it was ordered by Harrods, London’s most promintent department store founded in 1824.

S. Smith & Son.
The leading London firm for high quality and complicated watches at the end of the 19th Century and during the opening decades of the 20th, was founded by Samuel Smith, jeweler and watchmaker, c.1851. Watches were made for him by Nicole Nielsen. Alongside the wide range of civilian watches and clocks, Smith's also made chronometers which performed well and made the firm a supplier to the Admiralty. Under the guidance of Herbert S.A. Smith, the firm developed into a large manufacturing company with its own research laboratories, the family succession being continued a further generation by Sir Alan Herbert Smith, with the company going on to make automobile and aircraft instruments alongside clocks and watches. The company won a medal for their “non-magnetizable” watches for which they became well known.