“The Turnip”: Churchill’s Breguet Pocket Watch

10 August 2009 Comments 11 Comments

This post has been extended and relocated, but has been retained for the reader comments below. For the updated version click here.

11 thoughts on ““The Turnip”: Churchill’s Breguet Pocket Watch”

Jack, I rather found it “fair and balanced.” Morgan is an honest critic, unlike some of the dishonest ones. My annotations from the Zoller bibliography of books about Churchill, available online from the Hillsdale College Churchill Project:

Morgan, Ted.
Churchill: Young Man in a Hurry 1874-1915. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982, 608
pp. Churchill: The Rise to Failure 1874-1915. London: Jonathan Cape, 1983.
An exciting and learned work on the period, especially thorough on the
Dardanelles attack, which cost Churchill the Admiralty. Handsomely bound with
illustrated map endpapers. Although Morgan projected two more volumes he was
unable to convince his publisher to accept them; a shame, because this is a well
written, deftly argued work.

I have “Young Man In A Hurry” by Ted Morgan. Found him hard to read. Consider him a revisionist. Morgan is very negative about Churchill.

great stories on Churchill’s watch.

This is really interesting, You are a very skilled blogger.
I have joined your feed and look forward to more posts. Additionally, I’ve shared your site in my social networks

Oddly enough, “brain of a genius” does track to something said ABOUT WSC, by Charles Hobhouse, at the time Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, according to Ted Morgan’s biography, YOUNG MAN IN A HURRY: Hobhouse thought Churchill “was just a spoiled child endowed by some chance with the brain of a genius.”

But it does not track to anything Churchill said; it would seem more likely that Breguet Watches themselves coined that paean.

Was it WSC who said, “To own a Breguet is to carry the brains of a genius in your pocket”?

The watch was originally acquired by the Duke of Marlborough in 1890. It is a minute repeater chronograph, with a fly back second hand.

Sorry, I know nothing more than I reported.

I just saw this post. Very intersting Richard. What model Bregeut, specifically, did WSC carry? Anyone know?

I am not a timepiece expert, and only have his grandson to go by. But Breguet recently sponsored a London dinner for The Churchill Centre and the watch is pictured in the program.. The pocket watch’s reverse bears a Spencer-Churchill coat of arms and is very old; perhaps Breguet didn’t put their name on all the faces. What you see attached to the ring in the lower photo is not a watch but a small round gold case for holding gold Sovereigns (see last paragraph).

Two different watches are shown in this article. The one at the top with subdials is keyless and lacks Breguet’s characteristic hands, and the other at the bottom has a plain pendant and associated chain. Are they both by Breguet, or just the lower one, and which of these was worn by Churchill throughout his life?