According to an inscription on the case this gold watch was a present from Queen Charlotte to Sir John Pringle (1707-82), President of the Royal Society. Pringle was an eminent Scottish physician who had attended various members of the royal family since 1749. He studied medicine at the University of Leyden and served as Physician-General to the British army during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48). Drawing on his experiences of the appalling conditions of military hospitals, he published his great work Observations on the Diseases of the Army (1752) which proposed revolutionary changes in military medicine and sanitation. Although Pringle’s speciality was the army, he was appointed Physician in Ordinary to Queen Charlotte in 1763 and later attended the birth of Princess Augusta. He was created a baronet by the King in 1766. Pringle was elected president of the Royal Society in 1772 and was appointed Physician to the King in the following year. He had been a staunch defender of the reputation of George III’s mother, the Dowager Princess of Wales, at the time of the scandal surrounding her connection with Lord Bute and involvement in politics. In 1772 (the year of the Princess’s death) he told James Boswell that ‘his situation about the Royal Family gave him an opportunity of knowing circumstances that made it certain that the Princess was altogether free of both these concerns’.

The movement is signed by François-Justin Vulliamy, who supplied numerous clocks and watches to the King and Queen in the 1760s-80s.

Movement signed Justin Vulliamy / London Gold case struck with London hallmark for 1765-6 and maker’s mark PM, probably for Philip Mounier. Case inscribed A present / to / Sir John Pringle Bart. M.D. / President of the Royal Society / of Great Britain / from / HER MAJESTY QUEEN CHARLOTTE

Catalogue entry adapted from George III & Queen Charlotte: Patronage, Collecting and Court Taste, London, 2004