George Daniels has been called the greatest watchmaker of his generation, and honestly, it’s not an exaggeration. Working from a modest workshop on the Isle of Man, he managed to do what whole corporations couldn’t: push mechanical watchmaking forward at a time when quartz had nearly killed it off.

The headline act is, of course, the Co-Axial Escapement. Daniels started sketching it in the early 1970s, annoyed by the shortcomings of the Swiss lever. He carried a tiny prototype in his pocket, showing it to anyone who’d listen. Most brands shrugged it off. Too complicated, too eccentric. But he didn’t let go, and eventually Omega took the leap. By the 1990s, the Co-Axial was in production — the first genuinely new escapement to make it into the mainstream in more than two centuries.

George Daniels’ Co-Axial escapement: The larger escape wheel delivers impulse directly to the balance, while the smaller wheel transmits impulse to the lever pallet. In this instance, the balance is rotating counterclockwise to unlock a tooth on the larger escape wheel. Thereafter, the smaller escape wheel supplies an impulse to the balance via the lever (Image: Wikipedia)

Omega launched its first co-axial escapement watch (Omega De Ville) during 1999 developed by inventor George Daniels (Image: Omega)

But to box Daniels in as “the Co-Axial guy” misses the point. He was one of the only true complete watchmakers, mastering all 32 trades from making screws to engraving cases. The handful of watches he built entirely by hand are as uncompromising as they come — rare objects that carry the integrity of one man’s vision from start to finish.

George Daniels was the first watchmaker to have mastered 32 of the 34 crafts considered necessary to build a watch

And then there’s Watchmaking, his book from 1981. No glossy coffee-table tome, just page after page of practical instruction. You’ll find it, battered and oil-stained, on benches around the world. For countless watchmakers, it’s been the spark that turned curiosity into a career.

Daniels mattered because he refused to compromise. He proved that one person, working alone with the right skills and a stubborn streak, could change the course of an entire industry.