Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

340 BRITAIN AT WORK. and pinions to exact gauges, so as to be interchangeable in the early stages of the birth of a watch. The work is carried on partly on the factory system and partly in the homes of the workpeople, and many of the operations are conducted by women and girls, whereby the initial cost of the skeleton of a watch is greatly reduced. This skeleton, con- sisting of a framework which holds together the barrel, the fusee or cone, the four wheels forming the “ train,” and the pinions, is called the “ move- ment,” and most manufacturers now- adays begin their operations upon rough movements procured from the Prescot factories. A large company has been formed for the purpose of carrying the work through its further stages in order to produce the finished watch in Prescot itself, and it is able WATCH-MAKING- : A “ FINISHER.” in this way to produce an inexpensive English watch which competes in point of price with foreign articles of the same class. It is, however, to the makers of the better- class work that one should turn for a more typical survey of the process by which a watch is macle. The most prominent feature in the picture is the amazing extent to which the industry has carried the principle of the division of labour. A cutter of wheels out of sheet brass, working with a treadle' is able to earn 30s. per week, but, as we have drill sale maker for these holes, fair quality should contain it will be understood that WATCH-MAKING; A “JEWELLER.” seen, the watch-maker usually begins by purchasing and overhauling the rough move- ment. The first step is to place this in the hands of the escapement maker, who may easily earn ^3 per week, and he in his turn passes the mechanism on to the jeweller, who fills the holes bored by his immediate employer with the jewel holes required. Let it be noted that the jeweller is quite distinct from the jewel holer, whose task it is to cup-shaped depressions in tiny rubies, sapphires, or garnets by means of a hard point set in a lathe and operated with a slide rest. In the case of ladies’ watches this hole may not exceed 1 th of 400 an inch in diameter, yet its curve is carefully trimmed in order to reduce the friction of the axle of the wheel which rests upon it. As much as 18s. per pair may be paid by the whole- and as a watch of four or five pairs in this detail alone there is a distinct element of cost. Diamonds