He had the best London clock-maker, Thomas Tompion, construct a watch to his own design which incorporated the revolutionary hair-spring regulator.

Dr. Taylor has lent the works for “Majestic Time,” a Tompion retrospective running through Jan. 19 at the National Watch & Clock Museum in Columbia, Pa.

The celebrated English clockmaker Thomas Tompion—and, subsequently, his successor, George Graham—later mod­i­fied the anchor escapement to operate without recoil.