watchmaker

Person reparing a watch in Thailand

A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. A modern watchmaker is more likely to repair a wristwatch or a pocketwatch than to actually create a watch from scratch. A skilled watchmaker can typically manufacture many of the parts found in a watch. A person who primarily repairs watches, even if he is not qualified to make all components of a watch, is still called a watchmaker, rather than a watch repairer.

A watchmaker, as the name implies, works primarily on watches, not clocks, the latter is called a clockmaker. Some watchmakers work on clocks, but the skills and tools needed to work on a watch are not always applicable when working on a clock.

A watchmaker working on a Railroad watch

Historically, in England, watchmakers would have to undergo a seven-year apprenticeship and then join a guild, such as the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers in London, before selling their first watch. In modern times watchmakers undergo training courses such as the ones offered by the BHI, or one of the many school around the world following the WOSTEP style curriculum. Some USA watchmaking schools of horology will teach not only the wostep style including the ETA range of movements but also focuses on the older watches that a modern watchmaker will encounter on a daily basis.

Watchmaker as metaphor

William Paley and others used the watchmaker in his famous analogy to infer the existence of God (the teleological argument) .

Richard Dawkins later applied this analogy in his book The Blind Watchmaker, arguing that evolution is blind in that it cannot look forward. Evolution, says Dawkins, is not directed by god(s). Instead, all intricate improvements in nature's mechanisms stem from survival pressures.

Alan Moore in his seminal graphic novel Watchmen, uses the metaphor of the watchmaker as a central part of the backstory of his heroic character Dr. Manhattan.

In the NBC television series Heroes, the villain Sylar is a watchmaker by trade. His ability to know how watches work corresponds to his ability to gain new superpowers by examining the brains of people he has murdered.

In the scifi novel The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven, the Watchmakers are a small technologically intelligent sub-species of the Moties that will repair/improve things you leave out for them (accompanied by food as payment).

See also

• American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute
• Louis Cartier
• clockmaker
• Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH
• Watchmaker analogy
• horology
• chronometer watch
• marine chronometer

External links

• American Watch Manufacturers: 19th and 20th Century
• Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH
• American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute
• Famous watchmakers
• British Horological Institute