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Legendary Horologist
other people with the same name

George Daniels, CBE, FBHI, FSA, AHCI (19 August 1926 – 21 October 2011) was an English horologist who was considered by some to be one of the best in the world in the field of luxury mechanical watches and timepieces during his lifetime. He was a watchmaker who all but completely built 23 pocket watches and 2 wrist watches as well as a number of clocks all by hand (including the case and dial). Daniels commented often that "a watch has historic, intellectual, technical, aesthetic, useful and amusing qualities" and he sought to make watches that did each of these things while consistently improving on the technical and horological aspects of each watch he made. with 6 watches achieving prices in excess of USD$1.5 million. This makes George Daniels watches the first independently made watches to achieve this result.

The "Daniels Method" refers to the conception, design and manufacture of a watch all by hand and this was the way George made all of his watches (excluding the crystal and hairspring). Nearly all of these watches involved George expending over 2,500 man hours in the production of each watch with most watches each taking over a year to make. Many commentators have referred to these as works of art and technological and horological master pieces. In 1944, Daniels entered the British Army; he already had an interest in watches and did some repairs for army friends. On leaving the army in 1947 with a gratuity of £50, he bought some tools and got a job as a watch repairer. From studying horology at night classes, he became a Fellow of the British Horological Institute. After a decade of hard work, Daniels opened his first watch repair and cleaning shop in 1960 in London. Becoming interested in the works of the notable early 19th century French watchmaker Abraham Louis Breguet, Daniels soon became the 1960s' leading expert on Breguet and was often involved in advising on his work.

His friend named Sam Clutton introduced Daniels to the upscale timepiece market and convinced him that he had a future in expensive handcrafted watches. In 1969, Daniels constructed, for £2,000, his first pocket watch for Clutton. When his friend showed the piece to fellow collectors, it created great interest. Five years later, Daniels bought the watch back for £8,000. In 2012, it sold at auction in the United States for $285,000. Throughout his career, Daniels made signature timepieces for personally selected customers, stating "I never made watches for people if I didn't care for them." The watches, which cost tens of thousands of pounds, took more than 2,500 hours to make. His signature was to give them clear and clean dials with subsidiary dials interwoven with the main chapter ring.

During the quartz crisis, George Daniels accepted a commission from American industrialist and watch collector Seth G. Atwood to create a timepiece that would fundamentally improve the performance of mechanical watches. After much experimentation, Daniels had designed a new type of watch escapement by 1974. The mechanism, which was first unveiled in 1976 (see watch 10 below), the "Atwood") and known as the Daniels independent double wheeled escapement a further version which was patented in 1980, was later called the co axial escapement and the first named Daniels co axial escapement watch was watch 17 below (the "Martin"). Its design avoided the need to add oil to the escapement because the mechanism operated with very low friction. Traditional escapements had to use lubricants but this eventually caused problems with accuracy as oil thickened over time. However, the co axial escapement used radial friction instead of sliding friction, making lubricants theoretically unnecessary. In practice a small amount of lubrication is used on the impulse and locking surfaces of the pallet stones. Daniels' mechanism has since been described by some as the most important development in horology in the past 250 years.

Daniels, who was a member of the Swiss Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants, continued to make watches well into later life. In total he created 25 handmade watches which were completely made by himself (23 pocket watches and 2 wristwatches) other than the crystal, the mainspring, the engraving of the dials and the hairspring. One pocket watch remains incomplete and is not included in this total number of pocket watches produced by George Daniels. None of the White or Blue wristwatches or the Millenium or Anniversary series wristwatches were actually made by George Daniels and indeed many of the Anniversary watches were made after George Daniels had died.

Watchmaking, written by Daniels and first published in 1981, remains one of the most definitive books on horology. It was the first of another six books, some of which have been translated and published in French, Italian and German, that remain in print. Watchmaking, now in its third edition, was revised and reprinted in 1999. and then for £3,196,250 when it was resold in 2017. At the same auction the 1994 Four Minute Tourbillon chronograph pocket watch sold for £550,000; the 1970 Sarah Jane Daniels One Minute Tourbillon pocket watch sold for £290,000 and the 1991 Four Minute Tourbillon wristwatch sold for £385,250. having sold for CHF220,000 in 1988 also at a Sotheby's auction. In May 2019 at a Geneva Phillips auction the 1987 George Daniels Grande Complication pocket watch sold for CHF2,420,000. This watch previously sold in 2012 for £780,000. In December 2021 at the Phillips New York auction the 1971 Hornby One Minute Tourbillon pocket watch (the fourth of 8 pocket watches originally made by George Daniels) sold for USD$1.66m. Numerous commentators have remarked on the beauty and simplicity of the first 8 George Daniels pocket watches and one commentator, Michael Clerizo, who himself has written a book on George Daniels' watches,

In November 2022 the 1992 Spring Case Tourbillion watch (the last of the two wrist watches made by George Daniels and the second last watch ever made and completed by George (the last being the 1994 four minute tourbillion pocket watch) sold for CHF4,083,500. This watch was worn by George Daniels for over 10 years and was his daily wearer. The sale of this watch was reported globally with much interest since at the time of sale it was the highest price achieved at auction for a George Daniels watch and a UK made watch. Other notable sales include a 2001 Millenium white gold wrist watch signed George Daniels and Roger Smith for USD$2.4 million in the fall of 2023. This watch was the last one produced as part of the Millenium series.