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George Daniels, CBE, FSA (born 1926) is an English watchmaker living on the Isle of Man who is famous for creating the co-axial escapement. This has been used by Omega in their highest grade watches since 1999. He is one of the few living watchmakers who can create a complete watch by hand; including the case and dial. He is a former Master of the Clockmakers' Company of London and has been awarded their Gold Medal, a rare honour.

In 1944 George Daniels entered the British army; he already had an interest in watches and did some repairs for army friends. On leaving the army in 1947 with a gratuity of £50 which he spent on tools, he managed to get a job as a watch repairer. Having studied horology at night classes he became a Fellow of the British Horological Institute.After a few years he had become known by some of the top watch dealers and collectors, including Sam Clutton who got him interested in the great French watchmaker Breguet. The work of Breguet interested George so much that he concentrated on the repair and restoration of his watches for many years. Eventually, he wrote the main book on him in 1969 which was first published in 1975. By the sixties Daniels was the leading expert on Breguet and was very often involved in advising on his work

Most if not all of his watches have very clear and clean dials usually with subsidiary dials inter woven with the main chapter ring, this is clearly a Breguet influence. Daniels first watch was sold to Sam Clutton for £2000 in 1970 and it is understood that he bought it back from Clutton 5 years later for £8000.

To be able to make all of a watch he had to learn to make watchcases and to engine turn, so that he could make the dials.

After much experimenting he patented a type of watch escapement called the co-axial escapement, which takes away the necessity to oil the escapement, and has reduced friction to a very low level (since oil produces problems due to thickening). The co-axial escapement has now been put into production by Omega.

Daniels with the help of Roger W. Smith has finished 50 of these watches from the rough Omega Ebauche, into very rare wrist watches.

"Watchmaking" which Daniels wrote and was published in 1981 is considered one of the best books on making watches .

Already a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), Daniels was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "George Daniels", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0