Watch

Pocket watch in gilt metal and underpainted horn pair case. Thirty hour duration, single train, gilt brass, four pillar fusee movement with verge escapement. Brass balance with flat spiral balance spring. Pierced and engraved balance cock with grotesque mask. Tompion style regulator with silver regulating disk engraved with Roman numerals II to VI. Potence plate engraved with the words 'Cha Clay', 'LONDON' and '919'. Convex white enamel dial with Roman hour numerals, minute circle and Arabic five minute numerals. Blued-steel beetle and poker hands. Gilt metal pair case. Stamped inside inner case, incuse 'R'. Engraved on inner case with the words 'Rev. Edmund Nelson, The Parsonage, Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk. From Catherine'. Outer case covered with underpainted horn simulating tortoise-shell with gilt metal retaining pins. Tall stepped pendant and stirrup bow. Convex glass over dial. The balance cock screw and ill-fitting hands are replacements. Inner case originally had a swivelling dust cover (additional hole drilled to inner case near winding hole). The inscription on the watch relates to Catherine Nelson (1725-1767), (nee Suckling) who was Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson's (1758-1805) mother. His father was Reverend Edmund Nelson (1722-1802), Rector of Burnham Thorpe in Norfolk.
Charles Clay