# Help to identify this watch



## Fins dad (Dec 24, 2016)

Hi All, I have just found this pocket watch in my grandads garage. I was wondering if any of you experts could give me any information on it. I have tried searching the design under the manf name but cannot find anything. There doesn't seem to be any numbers on it to identify it. Hope the link to the image works


__
https://flic.kr/p/PhR8TP

Another image of the reverse, there is an engraved pattern around the sides.


__
https://flic.kr/p/PhRmSe

https://www.flickr.com/gp/[email protected]/15V6di


----------



## Fins dad (Dec 24, 2016)

The name at the top of the face is Thoms Russell and Son, Liverpool. And at the bottom of the face it says Swiss Made.


----------



## vinn (Jun 14, 2015)

welcome to the forum Fins ;! did you open the back yet? might find some info in there.


----------



## Fins dad (Dec 24, 2016)

Hi, thanks for your response, how would I open this up, there doesn't seem to be anywhere to prize it open.


----------



## Always"watching" (Sep 21, 2013)

I do enjoy the challenge of identifying members watches and in recent months I have noticed an increase in the number of enquiries about pocket watches.

Thomas Russell is apparently listed as a watchmaker at 20 Slater Street, Liverpool and then at no. 30 from about 1848 and it seems that he was a maker of some repute in the mid-19th century. In about 1859, Russell handed the company over to Thomas Robert Russell and Alfred Holgate Russell and this partnership traded as Thomas Russell & Son.

In 1870, the partnership between Thomas Robert and Alfred Russell came to an end. Thomas Robert Russell became proprietor of the Russell Watch and Chronometer Manufactory at Cathedral Works, 18 Church Street, with addresses at Picadilly and also Toronto, Canada. In 1894 the firm became Russell's Limited and traded as a jewellers first in Liverpool but then from the early 1900s also in Llandudno and Manchester.

As for the firm that went on trading as Thomas Russell & Son, this was continued by Alfred Holgate Russel, and in 1880 it was listed as chronometer and watch manufacturers and machine-made keyless lever and jewellery merchants by appointment to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh and the Admiralty. Interestingly, the firm did not cease to use the label of the Royal appointment to Queen Victoria immediately after the queen's death. It seems that from the 1880s Thomas Russell & Son was tending to trade more as an importer of movements from Switzerland which it cased in bought-in watch cases and then retailed, and the watchmaking side became minimal.

Thomas Russell & Son became a Limited Company and by 1938 it was trading as Thomas Russell & Co. Ltd.. A number of extant pocket watches and wristwatches bearing the Thomas Russell & Son name can be dated to the World War One period, so it appears that this company title was used into the early part of the twentieth century. Indeed, I feel pretty certain that your pocket watch dates to this period and I would date it to about 1910-1920.

I do hope that this information will be helpful to you, and you will find that there are quite a number of Thomas Russell & Son watches pictured online.


----------



## Fins dad (Dec 24, 2016)

That is very informative, thank you so much


----------

