Thomas Mudge was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 horologist

Horology

Horology is the art or science of measuring time. Clocks, watches, clockwork, sundials, clepsydras, timers, time recorders and marine chronometers are all examples of instruments used to measure time.People interested in horology are called horologists...

 who invented the lever escapement

Lever escapement

The lever escapement is a key component of the typical movement found in most mechanical wristwatches, pocket watches and many small mechanical non-pendulum clocks....

, the greatest single improvement ever applied to pocket watches

Pocket watch

A pocket watch is a watch that is made to be carried in a pocket, as opposed to a wristwatch, which is strapped to the wrist. They were the most common type of watch from their development in the 16th century until wristwatches became popular after World War I during which a transitional design,...

.

Early life

Thomas Mudge was the second son of Zacharian Mudge

Zachariah Mudge (clergyman)

Zachariah Mudge was an English clergyman, known for his sermons, and his deist or Platonist views.-Life:He was born at Exeter, and after attending its grammar school was sent in 1710 to the nonconformist academy of Joseph Hallett III. When there he fell in love with a certain Mary Fox, who...

, headmaster and clergyman, and his wife, Mary Fox. He was born in Exeter

Exeter

Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...

, but when he was young, the family moved to Bideford

Bideford

Bideford is a small port town on the estuary of the River Torridge in north Devon, south-west England. It is also the main town of the Torridge local government district.-History:...

, where his father became headmaster of the grammar school

Grammar school

A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...

. Thomas attended the same school and, when 14 or 15, was sent to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 to be apprenticed to George Graham

George Graham (clockmaker)

George Graham was an English clockmaker, inventor, and geophysicist, and a Fellow of the Royal Society.He was born to George Graham in Kirklinton, Cumberland. A Friend like his mentor Thomas Tompion, Graham left Cumberland in 1688 for London to work with Tompion...

, the eminent clock and watch maker who had trained under Thomas Tompion

Thomas Tompion

Thomas Tompion was an English clock maker, watchmaker and mechanician who is still regarded to this day as the Father of English Clockmaking. Tompion's work includes some of the most historic and important clocks and watches in the world and can command very high prices whenever outstanding...

. Graham’s business was situated in Water Lane, Fleet Street

Fleet Street

Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...

. When Mudge qualified as a watchmaker in 1738 he began to be employed by a number of important London retailers. Whilst making a most complicated equation watch for the eminent John Ellicott FRS, Mudge was discovered to be the actual maker of the watch and was subsequently directly commissioned to supply watches for Ferdinand VI of Spain

Ferdinand VI of Spain

Ferdinand VI , called the Learnt, was King of Spain from 9 July 1746 until his death. He was the fourth son of the previous monarch Philip V and his first wife Maria Luisa of Savoy...

. He is known to have made at least five watches for Ferdinand, including a watch that repeated the minutes as well as the quarters and hours.

Career

In 1748 Mudge set himself up in business at 151 Fleet Street, and began to advertise for work as soon as his old master, George Graham, died in 1751. He rapidly acquired a reputation as one of England’s outstanding watchmakers, and is now rightly considered one of the greatest and most influential watch and clock makers of the period. In 1753 he married Abigail Hopkins of Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

, with whom he had two sons.

Around 1755, if not earlier, Mudge invented the detached lever escapement

Lever escapement

The lever escapement is a key component of the typical movement found in most mechanical wristwatches, pocket watches and many small mechanical non-pendulum clocks....

, which he first applied to a clock, but which, in watches, can be considered the greatest single improvement ever applied to them, and which remains a feature in almost every pocket timekeeper made up to and including the present day.

In 1765 he published the book, Thoughts on the Means of Improving Watches, Particularly those for Use at Sea.

Design awards

In 1770, due to ill-health Mudge, quit active business and left London to live in Plymouth

Plymouth

Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...

 with his brother Dr John Mudge. From that date Mudge worked on the development of a marine chronometer

Marine chronometer

A marine chronometer is a clock that is precise and accurate enough to be used as a portable time standard; it can therefore be used to determine longitude by means of celestial navigation...

 that would satisfy the rigorous requirements of the Board of Longitude

Board of Longitude

The Board of Longitude was the popular name for the Commissioners for the Discovery of the Longitude at Sea. It was a British Government body formed in 1714 to administer a scheme of prizes intended to encourage innovators to solve the problem of finding longitude at sea.-Origins:Navigators and...

, which had been amended after the earlier work of John Harrison

John Harrison

John Harrison was a self-educated English clockmaker. He invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought device in solving the problem of establishing the East-West position or longitude of a ship at sea, thus revolutionising and extending the possibility of safe long distance sea travel in the Age...

. He sent the first of these for trial in 1774, and was awarded 500 guineas for his design. He completed two others in 1779 in the continuing attempt to satisfy the increasingly difficult requirements set by the Board of Longitude. They were tested by the Astronomer Royal

Astronomer Royal

Astronomer Royal is a senior post in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. There are two officers, the senior being the Astronomer Royal dating from 22 June 1675; the second is the Astronomer Royal for Scotland dating from 1834....

, Nevil Maskelyne

Nevil Maskelyne

The Reverend Dr Nevil Maskelyne FRS was the fifth English Astronomer Royal. He held the office from 1765 to 1811.-Biography:...

, and declared as being unsatisfactory. There followed a controversy in which it was claimed that Maskelyne had not given them a fair trial. A similar controversy had arisen when John Harrison had been denied the full amount of the 1714 prize by the Board of Longitude. Eventually, in 1792, two years before his death, Mudge was awarded £2,500 by a Committee of the House of Commons who decided for Mudge and against the Board of Longitude, then headed by Sir Joseph Banks.

In 1770 George III purchased a large gold watch produced by Mudge, that incorporated his lever escapement. This he presented to his wife, Queen Charlotte

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was the Queen consort of the United Kingdom as the wife of King George III...

, and it still remains in the Royal Collection

Royal Collection

The Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family. It is property of the monarch as sovereign, but is held in trust for her successors and the nation. It contains over 7,000 paintings, 40,000 watercolours and drawings, and about 150,000 old master prints, as well as historical...

 at Windsor Castle. In 1776 Mudge was appointed watchmaker to the king.

Death

In 1789 his wife, Abigail died. Thomas Mudge died at the home of his elder son, Thomas, at Newington Butts

Newington Butts

Newington Butts is a former village, now an area of the London Borough of Southwark, that gives its name to a segment of the A3 road running south-west from the Elephant and Castle junction...

, London on 14 November 1794. He was buried at St Dunstan-in-the-West

St Dunstan-in-the-West

The Guild Church of St Dunstan-in-the-West is in Fleet Street in London, England. An octagonal-shaped building, it is dedicated to a former bishop of London and archbishop of Canterbury.-History:...

, Fleet Street.