John Arnold

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For the English national and Hampshire County Cricket Club cricketer, see John Arnold (cricketer).

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John Arnold (born 1736 in Bodmin, Cornwall; died 1799 in London) was a watchmaker who developed and patented escapement and balance spring designs. He is known to have lived for a period at Well Hall House in Eltham, southeast London. In 1736, Arnold constructed what was then the smallest repeating watch, which was set in a ring and given to George III.

He then turned his attention to the production of ever more precise chronometers. One of these travelled with the explorer James Cook during his second voyage to the southern Pacific Ocean in 1772–1775. His undoubted claim to fame in the field of marine chronometers is the first application of a helical balance spring. This allowed the balance to swing through larger or smaller arcs in a constant time, one of the fundamental requirements for accurate timekeeping.

Arnold set up a small factory in Chigwell, Essex for the production of chronometers and in 1788 produced the first pocket chronometer. This watch, "No. 1/36", greatly impressed the Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne and was the first watch Arnold deemed worthy of the description "chronometer".

[edit] John Roger Arnold

Arnold's son John Roger Arnold was born in 1769 and served an apprenticeship with both his father and the eminent French watchmaker Abraham Louis Breguet. He became Master of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers in 1817. From 1787 he and his father founded the company Arnold & Son, which, after his father's death in 1799, John Roger continued with John Dent until 1840. After his death in 1843 the company was bought by Charles Frodsham.

The name Arnold & Son is now used by a Swiss watch company.