George Daniels (watchmaker)

Space Traveller pocket watch The English maker many independents name as their inspiration, and this is the piece that shows why. Work began in 1979 and finished in 1982: a pocket watch with separate solar and sidereal trains, so it keeps both everyday time and star time, regulated by an independent double-wheel escapement. Daniels mastered 32 of the 34 disciplines needed to make a watch by hand, and his book Watchmaking set out the approach still known as the Daniels Method. His wider legacy is the co-axial escapement, which Omega industrialised. Start here to see where the modern idea of a watch made almost entirely by one person comes from.