Derek Pratt: the forgotten master watchmaker

Independent watchmakers are not a creation of our own time. There have always been watchmakers who worked independently for their clients or for the brands that hired them. Derek Pratt was an independent watchmaker, perhaps one of the best. His watches are not easy to find; even at auction they are rare. Here we present the watchmaker and his work, so that his memory may live on for many years.

This English watchmaker is probably best known for his incredible work with Urban Jürgensen, alongside his friend Peter Baumberger, or perhaps for his unfinished replica of John Harrison's H4 chronometer. Yet there is a great deal to discover about his work. More than a decade has passed since his death, and in that time independent watchmaking has seen a veritable explosion.

Derek Pratt had an absolute devotion to mechanics, far beyond watchmaking. From Wankel-engined Mazdas to classic bicycles, Pratt's love of mechanics knew no bounds.

AN EARLY START

Pratt was perhaps always destined to create incredible mechanisms on a minute scale. Born in Petts Wood, on the outskirts of Orpington in south-east London, he was close to Greenwich and all the horological masterpieces to be seen there. The earliest recollections of Pratt's life come from his childhood friend, Derek Goldsmith. They grew up together and shared a passion for all things mechanical. Goldsmith made millions through the invention of a mixer valve, which would become the basis of the shower company Aqualisa. Pratt and Goldsmith were in the Scouts together, and both managed to get their parents to install lathes in their garages, allowing them to work on projects together throughout their teenage years.

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Pratt in his younger years – leaning against a Mazda with a Wankel engine (left) and on a Dursley Pedersen bicycle (right).

Both attended Beckenham Technical School, with Goldsmith a year ahead of Pratt. After graduating in 1953, Pratt trained at Smiths Industries and later, in 1956, began a course at the National College of Horology. It was designed as a three-year course in which students made a complete pocket watch in the final year. However, the programme was discontinued halfway through Pratt's course, so that he finished early, despite having been a prize-winning student up to that point. “Pratt saw this as a betrayal,” says Timothy Treffry, a long-standing friend of Pratt's and former editor of the Horological Journal. From very early on, Pratt had a clear vision of what he wanted to do, and his interests were already plain to see. According to the book written by Goldsmith and published by the British Horological Institute (BHI), Derek Pratt - Watchmaker, the two founded a company together in 1960 called Pratt and Goldsmith. They produced small, precise parts for other companies, which meant they ended up doing what they loved most while earning some money at the same time.

The year in which Pratt had to abandon his watchmaking course was the last for the National College of Horology, which closed shortly afterwards. This setback allowed Pratt to start working for Andrew Fell, the college's former director. They worked on table clocks, among other micro-engineering and micro-welding projects, which were booming thanks to the growth of the field of microelectronics. This work led Pratt to emigrate to Switzerland, where he settled with his first wife, Franziska.

THE START OF A HOROLOGICAL JOURNEY

Alongside the projects Pratt was developing with Fell, he began to take on independent restoration work, a path followed by many of today's most successful independents. Pratt restored antique chronometers and watches, starting a line of work that continued throughout his career – a fascination with traditional watchmaking and restoration. While some watchmakers of his era were beginning to look for new techniques, materials and designs, Pratt devoted his life to mastering the old ways of doing things. A true historian of the craft, he would look to the works of Breguet, Harrison and Tompion for inspiration, hoping to continue the tradition those early watchmakers had established some 200–300 years earlier.

Details on the dial of the Urban Jürgensen Oval Tourbillon Pocket Watch, highlighting Pratt's dedication to traditional methods.

These influences are clear, not only in his work but in his workshop. Pratt began building his collection of tools and machines in the early 1970s, a tumultuous time for the watch industry.

During the quartz crisis/revolution thousands of jobs were lost, but it also meant that the machines used to make traditional mechanical watches became available.

Many companies thought they would never need these tools again and sold them off as scrap. Pratt was able to take advantage of this period and bought all the equipment he needed for a small fraction of what it should have cost. “He managed to set up each lathe to do one specific job,” according to Treffry, “which meant saving a great deal of time, because in this way it became possible to carry out different jobs without having to reset the machine.” Another of these traditional techniques that Pratt was able to master, and for which he attracted particular attention, was guilloché. Pratt was able to carry out this technique with incredible precision. According to Treffry, “he would switch off the telephone and ignore the door if anyone tried to call on him while he was doing it”. There is even a story of someone who went to visit Pratt while he was working on a dial and, after several failed attempts to get his attention by knocking at the door, resorted to throwing snowballs at his window. It showed the level of concentration he reached when working at his machines.

Derek Pratt applying guilloché to a dial

In the book he wrote about his life and work, Dr Helmut Crott observed that the machines Pratt used at the time were not the most modern. Crott found photographs of Pratt working on a dial. “I showed these photos to my dial maker, who is 82 and has spent 65 years in the dial-making business,” he wrote. “He was very surprised by the tools Derek used. They looked archaic, but he added that anyone able to use those tools must be very talented.” Pratt was clearly determined to make watches in a traditional way and would not be swayed by modernity. Crott also noted that there was not a CNC machine in sight in his workshop. Pratt often joked that he did not use CAD (Computer-Aided Design); he much preferred CARD – cardboard. He made scale models of certain components in cardboard, using elastic bands to move them, thereby confirming that they worked before building them in metal. Mastering these old techniques and maintaining these ageing machines meant that Pratt was able to work sensitively on vintage pieces. His restoration work turned out to be almost a constant throughout his life. It was also the vehicle that brought him together with Peter Baumberger. Baumberger was a leading antiques dealer who would later become the owner of the Danish brand Urban Jürgensen und Sønner, a name linked to some of the most complex watches of the early 1800s. Because of the complexity often found in Urban Jürgensen pieces, Baumberger had trouble getting some of his pieces repaired – and it was that search which led to his first meeting with Pratt. Having built a reputation for working with traditional techniques and an ability to deal with multifaceted movements, Pratt's name was spreading to the four corners of the world.

DR. HELMUT CROTT

Pratt began to do more and more work for Baumberger, and the two eventually became close friends. When the latter was about to take full control of Urban Jürgensen und Sønner, there was really only one person he wanted at his side in the technical research department.

But it was not only on Urban Jürgensen watches that Pratt would work under Baumberger's wing in the early days – he also completed the restoration of a Vacheron Constantin presented to King Fuad I in 1929.

THE URBAN JÜRGENSEN YEARS

The movement of a tourbillon made by Derek Pratt for Urban Jürgensen. The movement bears the words “Invenit et Fecit”, meaning “created and made”, a motto found on Breguet watches as well as on those of F.P. Journe.

Recently there has been some buzz around Urban Jürgensen, as the Finnish watchmaker Kari Voutilainen has taken over as its new CEO and put his daughter Venla in charge of after-sales service. There was similar excitement at the time of Baumberger's acquisition of the brand. During that period the brand enjoyed a highly prolific era, largely thanks to Pratt's ability. When Pratt's involvement with Urban Jürgensen is discussed, the quality of his dials is often mentioned. His work on the watchmaker's lathe was always extremely highly regarded in the industry, even after his death. When his workshop was being cleared, a drawer full of discarded dials was found. To a less discerning eye they looked perfect, but on serious, close inspection it was possible to identify minute errors that anyone less of a perfectionist than Pratt would have been at peace with. Although his dial-making work was extraordinary, it was only one of his contributions to the brand, of which he became technical director in 1982, a post he held until 2005.

The machine Pratt used to create his extraordinary dials

When it comes to Pratt's work with Urban Jürgensen, many will instantly think of his oval pocket watch. This was a project that would take more than two decades to complete, with the finishing touches carried out by Kari Voutilainen. Although its distinctive case shape may help it stand out aesthetically, the real highlight of this watch lies in its movement. For this watch, Pratt invented a new way of fitting a remontoire and a gear train into a tourbillon. What was the innovation? Mounting an extra remontoire inside the tourbillon cage. He would also incorporate a detent escapement into this mechanism, one of his favourites thanks to its unique quality of apparently needing no lubrication. Pratt faced many unique challenges in building this watch, but he seems to have met them all with the same determination that many came to know throughout his career. He made every part of this watch by hand, even the screws. This particular watch had three cases made for it – one in silver, one in platinum and one in rose gold. The platinum and rose gold examples were produced between 2005 and 2006 by Bruno Affolter, a master casemaker at Les Artisans Boîtiers, a subsidiary of Parmigiani. The silver case, however, was made by Pratt on his lathe. Because of its oval shape, a special attachment had to be fitted to his lathe to complete the task. He did such a good job that the master casemaker Jean-Pierre Hagmann would say, after having the chance to examine the case: “The mastery and quality of the workmanship are excellent! The maker deserves the title of master casemaker!”

He would likewise take on the challenge of forming the two crystals that would cover the front and back of the watch – not something just any craftsman could do. Pratt sought the advice of what was supposedly the only man capable of shaping sapphire in this way, who laughed at Pratt when he explained the dimensions of the project. Once it became clear that a collaboration would not be possible, Pratt decided to carry out the task himself. He ended up managing to produce both, including the back crystal, which has two holes for winding and setting the watch. Pratt was incredibly proud of this watch, to the point of adding a sketch of it to his business card. However, as mentioned above, he was unable to finish the project. In 2004, when Pratt's cancer was at an early stage, Baumberger asked him whether he could hand the project over to Kari Voutilainen, who would add the final parts to the movement as well as applying the spectacular finishing. For a more detailed guide to this watch, we recommend reading Dr Helmut Crott's article published on SJX.

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Urban Jürgensen Ref. 2 alongside the Ref. 3.

Of course, this was not the only piece Pratt would make for Urban Jürgensen and Baumberger. He worked on and developed the Ref. 2 and Ref. 3 wristwatches, in which his perpetual calendar module was mounted on top of an F. Piguet calibre. The only difference between the two was the addition of a power reserve indicator in the lower half of the moon-phase dial on the Ref. 3.

These two watches would define Urban Jürgensen's design codes for many years. After the deaths of Pratt and Baumberger, the aesthetic of these two watches shaped the brand's entire style.

THE RELATIONSHIP WITH GEORGE DANIELS

Looking back, it may seem obvious that Derek Pratt and George Daniels would become friends. The two greatest talents of their generation were born in England, 12 years apart. According to Treffry, “the two would have long telephone conversations every Sunday, discussing at length the various challenges they had each faced in their work over the week. Although they shared many skills and much knowledge, they were also able to complement each other very well. Pratt's skill in machining, specifically Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM), was a great help to Daniels, and it is believed that Pratt made the tiny pivot needed to create the co-axial escapement.

George Daniels with Derek Pratt and Grahame Brooks, then UK Sales Director of Audemars Piguet, in 1986, in front of a 1928 “Blower Bentley”.

Pratt's love of all things horological was not limited to pocket watches and wristwatches – he also had a great fascination for the Gothic iron clocks that still run in so many European village clock towers today. He would also produce four water clocks over the course of his career. It is an aspect of horology that many do not think about today, and possibly not the most glamorous side of the industry, but it intrigued Pratt. One that he made and would go on developing for several years stood across two floors of his workshop and is now in the BHI Museum at Upton Hall, Nottinghamshire. His third water clock was a commission for a village celebrating its 950th anniversary, taking on the role of part public art, part functional timekeeper. Although these two British master watchmakers were very alike in many respects, it is perhaps their differences that affect their legacies. Daniels was known as a force of nature in the industry: nothing would stand in the way of his making the co-axial a commercial success, nor would he stop pushing constantly to promote English watchmaking and the Daniels Method. Pratt, meanwhile, was quite happy to work under other people's names. “He was quiet; polite in a very understated way,” says Richard Stenning, co-owner of Charles Frodsham & Co. and they made use of Reuleaux triangles, a curved shape of constant width, which Pratt used in his remontoire system. It was not only machines that excited Pratt – he also took great pleasure in pop-pop boats, a small toy that can be made at home using fairly rudimentary parts. Pratt refined these boats to the limit and even wrote several articles about them for a specialist magazine.

Pratt on what is believed to be a BSA Sloper.

On a slight tangent, Pratt's love of all things horological was not limited to pocket watches and wristwatches – he also had a great fascination for the Gothic iron clocks that still run in so many European village clock towers today. He would also produce four water clocks over the course of his career. It is an aspect of horology that many do not think about today, and possibly not the most glamorous side of the industry, but it intrigued Pratt. One that he made and would go on developing for several years stood across two floors of his workshop and is now in the BHI Museum at Upton Hall, Nottinghamshire. His third water clock was a commission for a village celebrating its 950th anniversary, taking on the role of part public art, part functional timekeeper. Although these two British master watchmakers were very alike in many respects, it is perhaps their differences that affect their legacies. Daniels was known as a force of nature in the industry: nothing would stand in the way of his making the co-axial a commercial success, nor would he stop pushing constantly to promote English watchmaking and the Daniels Method. Pratt, meanwhile, was quite happy to work under other people's names. “He was quiet; polite in a very understated way,” says Richard Stenning, co-owner of Charles Frodsham & Co.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ESCAPEMENT

While Daniels is known throughout the watchmaking community for his co-axial escapement, Pratt also developed an ingenious form of escapement directly inspired by the work of A.L. Breguet. This was, of course, his remontoire tourbillon, which retained a detent escapement. In 1981, Pratt set out to solve a problem that Breguet had been unable to solve – creating a constant-force tourbillon. As Andrew Crisford, a specialist in British watchmaking and Breguet, points out in his book, Breguet attempted this feat in a few watches engraved with “Echappement à force-constanté”, but only one of those watches survives, and its escapement has since been replaced.

The mechanical principles behind Derek Pratt's escapement

Pratt's solution was to incorporate a remontoire inside the tourbillon. This remontoire is what drives the tourbillon, and it receives energy directly from the gear train. This means that the escapement pivot that normally drives the tourbillon around one of the wheels is replaced by the pivot attached to the remontoire. This one-second remontoire is linked to the escape wheel by a spiral spring which winds and releases every second, delivering an impulse to the escape wheel.

The Reuleaux system

The component of this construction that stands out most is the Reuleaux triangle. This curved equilateral triangle acts as a cam, controlling the movement of the pallets that interact with the remontoire. Attributed to the 19th-century German mechanical engineer Franz Reuleaux, the Reuleaux triangle belongs to the Reuleaux polygons, which share the unique quality of having a constant diameter. This allows the teeth of the fork in which it sits to remain in constant contact with the cam as it turns and shifts the pallets with each rotation. It is the same shape used by Mazda in its Wankel engines, as mentioned above.

This escapement first appeared in a series of pocket watches made for Urban Jürgensen. Pratt would produce a second series of these pocket watches in the 1990s, the main difference being that the triangular cam was made of synthetic ruby instead of steel, allowing much lower friction. In 1997, Pratt would turn his attention to a new project with another innovative escapement. This time he took inspiration from Daniels and his double-wheel design, building a watch that incorporated it into a tourbillon that also used a detent escapement. In a Daniels double-wheel escapement the two wheels turn in opposite directions, which is slightly counter-intuitive for a tourbillon. According to Treffry, Pratt, “while in the bathroom, realised that if you add a second fixed wheel with inward-facing teeth, it makes the escape wheel turn in the opposite direction”. Pratt made this watch for a competition commemorating the 250th anniversary of Breguet's birth. Combining two of the old masters' inventions, he managed to take second place, and the watch would go on to provide some of the inspiration for the escapement of Frodsham's Double Impulse Chronometer. This watch is now on display at the Science Museum in London.

HIS UNFINISHED H4

Pratt took on the Herculean task of replicating H4, the last marine chronometer produced by John Harrison, famous for winning the Longitude Challenge. This was something of a passion project for Pratt, who had been fascinated by this piece for years, along with John Harrison's complete body of work.

Treffry tells us that Pratt's chronometer should not be referred to as a replica: “he always said he was ‘building another one’.” “He wanted to get inside Harrison's mind to try to solve the problems he had to solve.” It was also important not to call it a replica because, at the time, H4 was technically owned by the Admiralty and was a state secret. This meant that nobody was allowed access to it, except those who worked at the museum in Greenwich – and, at the time, the only man trusted to keep H4 running was Jonathan Betts, curator emeritus of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. This would be Pratt's final project. He began it in 1997, but would have to hand it over to the team at Frodsham to finish. “It was a difficult handover,” says Roger Stevenson, a now semi-retired watchmaker at Frodsham who, together with Philip Whyte, travelled to Switzerland and stayed with Derek for a week to begin the transition of the project. “He had devoted so much time and effort to this project and must have gradually realised that he would not be able to finish it.”

Stevenson and Whyte's visit was not the first contact Frodsham had had with this project. According to Stevenson, Whyte put Pratt in touch with the various craftsmen who helped him with the specialised parts of the project. Martin Matthews made the silver case; Charles Scarr completed the intricate engraving work; and Jos Houbraken worked on the delicate dial. What was striking was that this was the very definition of a team effort. Nevertheless, Treffry pointed out that all these outside craftsmen still had to live up to Pratt's high expectations. “I think he went through three dial makers before finding Houbraken,” he said. Pratt was very much a perfectionist. In the BHI book dedicated to Pratt, Whyte details how it was not only the dial maker that went through several iterations – Pratt also went through several casemakers and engravers to ensure that every detail of his H4 was perfect.

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The H4 case and the movement, completed in 2014

Frodsham officially took control of the project in 2009, shortly before Pratt lost his life to prostate cancer. They managed to complete the project in time for a touring exhibition called Ships, Clocks & Stars at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich in March 2014. “We naively thought we would only have to set aside one day a week to work on H4,” says Stevenson. That day turned into almost every waking hour as the deadline approached.

PRATT'S LEGACY

It is safe to say that Derek Pratt was one of the most important and talented watchmakers of the 20th century. His work spans the full breadth of horology, and his skills and interests were so varied that he was clearly able to turn his hand to almost any mechanical challenge. Yet for those who knew him, that was always secondary to his kindness and his character. “Whoever you were, Derek always had time to sit down and share some advice,” says Stenning, recalling the many times Pratt would stop by the Frodsham workshop before heading to the pub for an obligatory ‘afternoon and a beer’.

Pratt was awarded the Tompion Gold Medal of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers for excellence in horology in 2005

Although he never took on an apprentice – according to Treffry, this was partly due to his incredibly high standards and the fact that he only ever worked from sketches – Pratt was clearly very keen to pass on his knowledge whenever he could. He regularly invited WOSTEP students to visit his home workshop on Saturday afternoons, when, besides acquiring high-quality knowledge, they would be treated to a substantial afternoon tea prepared by Pratt's second wife, Jenny. He received several awards for his ability in watchmaking, from the Silver and Gold medals, the second-highest and highest honours the BHI can bestow, to the Prix Gaïa. He was also a rare recipient of the Tompion Medal of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers. Many of Pratt's greatest innovations never reached the commercial sphere as the co-axial did. In part this was because Pratt never pursued that path, but their high level of complexity also made them difficult to produce at scale and almost impossible to scale down for a wristwatch. All of this often makes it hard for his legacy to resonate with many collectors and enthusiasts today.

Pratt was a rare breed in watchmaking: a hyper-talented watchmaker who seemingly approached every discipline of the profession at the highest level. As Stenning says, “He was the complete watchmaker.”

This text is based on the article Derek Pratt: the forgotten watchmaker and on the book Derek Pratt: Watchmaker published by the BHI.