History of the Chronograph Watch

History of the Chronograph Watch

The Greek words "chronos" and "graph" stand for "time" and "writing". A chronograph is a chronometric (time-measuring) device which contains a mechanism that allows to stop at least one hand to facilitate reading of the elapsed time.

The chronograph was invented by a Frenchman, named
Rieussec, back in 1821. Literally, this was the only timepiece that bore the name Chronograph rightly. It was actually written on the dial with a small pen attached to the index. The length of the arc of the circle displayed the time that had passed. The index was fixed, while the dial turned. In 1822, Rieussec was granted a patent for his invention.

Around 1910, the chronograph, also refered to as stopwatch, was introduced as a wrist watch. Soon it was a very sought after type of watch, only to gain in popularity through the years. When the Swatch watch company started the production of affordable and fashionable chrono's in early 1990, they sold like hot cakes, as were the later versions. Nowadays, almost every respectable watch company has a chonograph in its collection.

Chronographs are watches that can meassure time in different ways. Besides normal timekeeping, they can be used for one or more specific time measurements. For this, the dial has several sub dials with a scale, from which the measurements can be read. A central second hand can be started and stopped, without interfering with the continuous time.

The design of the dial of chronographs depends on the number of subsidiary dials. This can be two, three or even four. One of them is likely to be situated on the "9" of the dial, and shows the continuous seconds. When the chronograph is activated by pushing the top button, the central seconds hands starts moving. After one complete cycle is completed and the hand has returned to "12", the minute-indicator, located at the "3", will jump one position. With this simple type of chronograph a period of 30 or 45 minutes can be measured.

The developpement of the chronograph folllowed the technical innovation of the wrist watch very closely. When in the 1930's manufacturers started producing waterproof watches, this know how was used in the production of chronographs shortly after.

In 1933, the firm Universal introduced the first waterproof chronograph to the public under the name "Colonial". And shortly after developpers managed to protect the movement of a watch against magnetical influences, the first anti-magnetic chronograph followed.

More complicated chrono's have a subregister for total hours, often located at 6 o'clock on the dial. This enable to take measurements up to 12 hours. Even fairly simple chronographs have a very complicated movement.

As a rule, a chronograph is more expensive than a normal or automatic watch, due to the complexity and craftmenship necessary for manufacturing.