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| Open Faced (left) and Hunter (right) 19 Jewel Rotherham three-quarter plate movements. All that I have had have had the curved top plate, but other makers used a similar shape so that alone is not a guarantee it is a Rotherham. |
Introduced in the very (?) late 1880s the elegant Rotherham three-quarter plate movement remained in production with minimal changes until the company stopped watch production in the mid-1930s.
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| Under the dial view showing the Rotherham logo (Centre right) and the rocking bar setting mechanism. the general layout is the same as Rotherham's Keyless Full plate model of the 1890's and into the next century. |
The majority that I seen[1] are from 1890 through to WWI with a few from the 1920s. The earliest dateable one I have seen was from 1890 and the latest, for J.W. Benson, was in a case hallmarked 1934.
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| An 11 Jewel Size 6 half Hunter for Rowell of Oxford. 1891. |
Rotherham did not favour jewelling the centre wheel for reasons explained in another post and would go for cap jewels on the escape before jeweling the 3rd wheel and often before jeweling the fourth or the lever pallet as they did in the 11J example for Rowell shown on the right.
As time went on the lower jewel count movements became far fewer and the odd movement begins to turn up with 20 jewels.
From my sample, by far the most popular was the size 12 with 19 jewels.
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| A rare 19J size 0 Rotherham 3/4 plate, 1907; the only significant difference with the larger models is the lack of a seconds hand, it even has Geneva stop work. The case is 1.5" in diameter excluding the pendant etc. |
All of the movements had true English Lever escapements many had Geneva stop gear and this was retained on the 19 & 20 jewel models until well after WWI.
Almost all had steel Breguet hairsprings with cut compensating balances but a few were produced with Elenvar Breguet springs with solid gold balances.
It is likely that the many, if not all, of the 19 & 20 jewel movements were half-chronometers but although print advertising often made much of this it was not the custom to mark English movements as "adjusted" and only a few later models I have seen were so marked.
Cases were mainly silver and solid gold, the former at least made in house, the later were much less substantial and “frequently swing out” types”, I have not seen enough of these to even guess at who made them.
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| The 20 Jewel version, 1902. Very unusually it is marked as adjusted. |
Almost all had steel Breguet hairsprings with cut compensating balances but a few were produced with Elenvar Breguet springs with solid gold balances.
It is likely that the many, if not all, of the 19 & 20 jewel movements were half-chronometers but although print advertising often made much of this it was not the custom to mark English movements as "adjusted" and only a few later models I have seen were so marked.
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| The most common Rotherham three-quarter plate, a size 12 19J. This one for Reid & Son of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is now back with a descendant of the retailer, the result of a long search! |
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| A typical Silver Half-Hunter case, this one a 19J size 12 for Butt & Co branded "The County". 1911 |
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| A Hunter in a 14 Carat Filled gold "SUN" grade case by Dennison c1929. |
A fairly rare variant of the standard movement was made for dress watches, this was slimmed down by about a third compared with the standard model and had a clip on dial.
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| The slim variant of the 19J Size 12 in a 14 carat solid gold case, 1932. |
A centre seconds variant was also produced but I have seen very few and had only one, these where not chronographs having no stop function.
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| A rare centre seconds variant with 20 Jewels for retailer W.J. Storey, 1894. |
[1] I have seen just over 80 Rotherham ¾ plates from size zero through 16, some are datable, others not.
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