The pocket watches carried by Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson (shown mounted in a gilt carriage clock form case), Captain Thomas Masterman Hardy and Rear Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood at the Battle of Trafalgar. Estimate £800,000-£1.2m at Spink.
They will be sold together as a single lot with an estimate of £800,000-1.2m as part of Spink’s 360th Anniversary Sale in London on December 9.
All three watches remained in family ownership into the 20th century. However, it was only in 2024, that they were reunited by a private collector for the first time since they were synchronised at around 10am on October 21, 1805.
Nelson’s watch is the most interesting in horological terms. Numbered 1104, it was one of just 38 watches made by London maker Josiah Emery (1725-1794) with his revolutionary lever escapement. It is unlikely Nelson purchased the watch himself, as he would have lacked the wherewithal to do so before Emery's death in 1794.
Most probably, it was one of many awards, decorations and gifts that followed victory at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. Nelson had taken the watch for a service to Louis Recordon of Cockspur Street on his last leave in London in September 1805.
In the Victorian period it was mounted in a gilt carriage clock form case with the engraved inscription: The Chronometer of Horatio Viscount Nelson. Worn by him at the Battle of Trafalgar placed in this case by his niece Charlotte Mary, Lady Bridport, to be preserved for any one of her descendants, who may enter the Navy.
From 1962 until 2005 (when it was sold by private treaty it was in the care of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. In July 2018 it was sold by Sotheby’s in a Treasures sale for £322,000.
Hardy's watch, made by Robert Holland in London in 1755 was likely a family piece passed to him when he entered the navy in 1781. In Hardy's 1909 biography, it is evocatively described as 'The watch he wore while he held the dying Nelson in his arms'. The watch descended in the family of Hardy's sister until it was sold by Henry Duke & Son in Dorset in June 1938.
Hardy’s watch was the last to join this extraordinary collection in 2024.
Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood (1748-1810) was the second-in-command at Trafalgar and first into action in Royal Sovereign at the head of the leeward division. He assumed command of the fleet following Nelson's death. His gold watch was made in London in 1803 by Thomas Moss and purchased by Collingwood that year during his last leave in England.
Seven years later, after he died at sea, his body was brought back to England and laid in a tomb beside his Nelson in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral. His watch was returned to his family who engraved it with the coat of arms which Collingwood had earned when the king ennobled him in his absence after Trafalgar.
It remained in family ownership until it was sold in 1979. In December 2007, it sold for £10,800 at Bonhams.
Another Nelson watch, a gold and enamel alarm watch made by James McCabe presented to the admiral by the officers of HMS Victory in August 1805. This watch also sold at a Sotheby's auction in 2005 for £400,000. According to inventories of his possessions after his death, this watch was not with Nelson at Trafalgar.
