The NAWCC Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Mr. Rory McEvoy has been named Executive Director of the NAWCC. Rory is an internationally renowned horological scholar and comes to the NAWCC with strong credentials that solidly align with our education, fundraising, and membership growth objectives. He has a postgraduate degree in the conservation and restoration of antique clocks from West Dean College, and throughout his career, he has had the opportunity to handle some of the world’s most important horological artifacts, including longitude timekeepers by Harrison, Kendall, and Mudge.
Rory formerly worked as Curator of Horology at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, where his role included day-to-day management of research and digitization projects, writing, public speaking, conservation, convening conferences, exhibition work, and development of acquisition/disposal and collection care policies. In addition, he has worked as a horological specialist at Bonhams in London, where he cataloged and handled many rare timepieces and built important relationships with collectors, buyers, and sellers. Most recently, Rory has used his talents to share his love of horology at the university level by teaching horological theory, history, and the practical repair and making of clocks and watches at Birmingham City University.
Rory is a British citizen and currently resides in the UK. Pre-COVID-19, Rory and his wife, Kaai, visited HQ in Columbia, Pennsylvania, where they met with staff, spent time in the Museum and Library & Research Center, and toured the area. Rory and Kaai will be relocating to the area as soon as the immigration challenges and travel restrictions due to COVID-19 permit.
Some of you may already be familiar with Rory as he is also a well-known author and lecturer. His recent publications include the book Harrison Decoded: Towards a Perfect Pendulum Clock, which he edited with Jonathan Betts, and the article “George Graham and the Orrery” in the journal Nuncius.
Until Rory’s relocation to the United States is complete, he will be working closely with an on-boarding team assembled by the NAWCC Board of Directors to introduce him to the opportunities and challenges before us and to ensure a smooth transition. Rory will be participating in strategic and financial planning immediately, which will allow him to hit the ground running when he arrives in Columbia
You can read more about Rory McEvoy and this exciting announcement in the upcoming March/April issue of the Watch & Clock Bulletin.
Please join the entire Board and staff in welcoming Rory to the NAWCC community.
A Fantastic looking Watch and that is a nice piece of info. Also a debatable piece though regarding the Louisville & Nashville R.R Inspectors interpretation, considering what other info is about for other lines and what was actually used on some of them. Once again it just shows how wide of a variance in interpretations occurred regarding the Subject of "Inspection Service Rules" and what was actually inplemented across the Railroads.
Well, perhaps not in a heavy gold case, John. However, Greg Frauenhoff has shared research indicating that a surprising number of E. Howard & Co. watches were used on some railroads. If Greg sees this post, perhaps he will respond here.
Three hunters and eleven open face watches for the engineers, six hunters for the firemen. The hunters were all earlier than the open face watches. All are N Size, no L Size. Interesting patterns. Without retrieving my cumbersome set of photocopied handwritten Howard factory records and poring over them, I can't tell which grades these movements were, but they were all 15 jewel 3/4 plate movements.
Well, to my knowledge, E. Howard & Co. never extensively advertised their watches for railroad service like the E. Howard Watch Co. did in a later period. EH&Co primarily courted the luxury market, and they also had conservative jeweling practices. The ad PL posted may be the only ad of which I am aware promoting EH&Co watches for railroad service. So I think this may explain the relative lack of interest in EH&Co watches among railroad watch collectors generally, though Ed and Kent can speak for themselves specifically. Nevertheless, a fair number of railroad men apparently were drawn to the reputation of EH&Co watches. Harold Visser and I did guest-publish one article on EH&Co watches for Ed and Kent in the Railroader's Corner, in which we discussed Howard's rare "RR" marked movements.
I would be very interested in seeing these judgments on reliability, and in hearing about relative difficulties maintaining watches in RR service, &c. It sounds like a fascinating topic!
![1897_Dec_Big_4_Time_Service_Rules[1].JPG](https://mb.nawcc.org/data/attachments/556/556246-a57ce2fa369c30d3123616ca91afa447.jpg "1897_Dec_Big_4_Time_Service_Rules[1].JPG")
John, it is certainly my own observation that most EH&Co watches were indeed cased in gold, as are most surviving Ball Howard cases in particular. As for whether a railroad man would have carried such a watch on the job every day, I do not know. I can tell you, however, that there is abundant evidence that there were plenty of gold watches on Civil War battlefields, which were also rugged, dirty, challenging environments. I don't know when screwed back and bezel cases became the dominat case style on the railroads, but certainly by then, if not before, gold cases would have been uncommon.
The reference to Howard's "18 Size," New 1895 Model apparently means their N Size split plates, probably the open face "Series VIII" but also possibly the hunting case "Series VII" as well, but not the older 3/4 plate versions. These nickel movements all had 17 jewels and Breguet overcoil hairsprings, and all were marked as being fully adjusted to HCI6P. The railroads seem to have had an aversion to Howard's L Size watches, though some of Howard's "RR" marked watches were L Size Model 1869's ("Series V's") . The aforementioned Ball Howards, which came out a year or two earlier than the split plates, also had 17 jewels and overcoil hairsprings, but were 3/4 plate.
AS I stated in my first post my watch was approved under the 15 jewel standard up to 1894.
They may well have been, PL. I was just going by Greg's Post #10. I can well believe that some Howard keywinds from the 1860's were still in service in the 1890's.
