[CARROLL]--[DODGSON] | The Author's "second-best silver watch", engraved for his nephew

[CARROLL, LEWIS]--DODGSON, CHARLES LUTWIDGE

The Author's "second-best silver watch", engraved for his nephew, Bertram Collingwood

Silver half hunting cased Swiss watch no 33516, c. 1880

Dial: white enamel, Roman numerals, blued steel hands,

Movement: cylinder escapement, signed G&G Geneve

Case: silver, blue enamel chapter ring with Roman numerals to the front, numbered 33516, cuvette engraved "B.J.C. | from | C.L.D."

Dimensions: 45mm diameter

Accessories: accompanied by a key

Dial: with losses and cracks. Movement: running at the time of cataloguing and hands adjusting. Case: the glass is loose, losses to the blue enamel, tarnishing to the case and scuffs throughout. Please note that the movement has not been tested for the accuracy of time and may need a service at the buyer's expense. Sotheby's does not guarantee the future working of the movement and we do not guarantee the authenticity of any individual component parts since subsequent repairs and restoration work may have resulted in the replacement of original parts.

Anton Bach, a German watchmaker, was located at 40 Great Russell Street, London. Collingwood family legend records that Carroll would occasionally visit ‘to get Greenwich time’. Carroll’s diary notes, on 1 May 1883, ‘To Bach, to leave my second-best silver watch to be put in order as a present for Bertram’. This is that watch. Given the introduction of the White Rabbit taking a watch out of his waistcoat-pocket in the third paragraph of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, this is a wonderfully evocative item linking Lewis Carroll’s family and his work.

Bertram James Collingwood (1871-1934) was the younger brother of Carroll's nephew and Godson, Stuart Dodgson Collingwood. Carroll gave this watch to his twelve-year old nephew and it has remained with the family ever since.

Bertram matriculated at Caius College, Cambridge before attending St Mary's Hospital Medical School, University of London. During the Boer War he was a civil surgeon and served in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the First World War. He was Professor of Physiology at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, 1921-1934. During the 1932 Centenary he toured the United States lecturing on his uncle in aid of the Lewis Carroll Memorial Ward at St Mary's.

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