Is there any record of watches being used in ME?

[EdenDelacroix]

... Particularly by hobbits!
I've already begun to discuss this with Squint-Eyed Southerner in PMs. I'm curious as to whether there's any record of watches being used in Middle-Earth.
I can imagine men using them, and maybe hobbits, since there was bound to be a few days in the year where it was cloudy outside in Hobbiton and you couldn't tell the time from the sky.
If there isn't record in The Hobbit/LotR, do you think it would be at least probable?

 

[Deimos]

... Particularly by hobbits!
I've already begun to discuss this with Squint-Eyed Southerner in PMs. I'm curious as to whether there's any record of watches being used in Middle-Earth.
I can imagine men using them, and maybe hobbits, since there was bound to be a few days in the year where it was cloudy outside in Hobbiton and you couldn't tell the time from the sky.
If there isn't record in The Hobbit/LotR, do you think it would be at least probable?

Clocks or watches? Clocks date to the Middle Ages in our world.
The first watches did not appear until the 16th C.
Methinks the only race in ME capable of making tiny intricate metal-work would be the elves.
The Dwarves typically went "macro" and not "micro" in their metalwork... I think decorative jewellery was about as "micro" as they went.
And the Hobbits, not at all. They would have had to barter for it. Also Hobbits lived in an agrarian community, and as such their lives were governed by the movement of the sun, day-to-day, month-to-month. They would have no need of time pieces (imo).

 

[Halasían]

I know there were clocks, but I'm not sure about watches. I'm sure if one of the hobbits carried a pocket watch in their travels, it would have been mentioned. Oddly, it was Pippen who thinks about time when he is in Gondor...

‘Nine o’clock we’d call it in the Shire,’ said Pippin aloud to himself. ‘Just the time for a nice breakfast by the open window in spring sunshine. And how I should like breakfast! Do these people ever have it, or is it over? And when do they have dinner, and where?’

 

[Deimos]

I know there were clocks, but I'm not sure about watches. I'm sure if one of the hobbits carried a pocket watch in their travels, it would have been mentioned. Oddly, it was Pippen who thinks about time when he is in Gondor...

HAHA... Pippin's stomach was his "clock". 😄
Humans had to have internal clocks as well as external ones (the sun, the night sky) to survive.
So you can be pretty sure we are (or were) born with one. l know I was...I use it all the time.
So I'm pretty certain Hobbits had reliable "internal clocks"

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I'm not sure about watches

I think this answers the question.

 

[Server Room Gremlin]

The Dwarves typically went "macro" and not "micro" in their metalwork... I think decorative jewellery was about as "micro" as they went.

They made toys too (as seen in the first chapter of The Lord of the Rings). There's no description of the toys, but perhaps they had small moving parts, like watches would. 🤔

On this occasion the presents were unusually good. The hobbit-children were so excited that for a while they almost forgot about eating. There were toys the like of which they had never seen before, all beautiful and some obviously magical. Many of them had indeed been ordered a year before, and had come all the way from the Mountain and from Dale, and were of real dwarf-make.

There were also tiny musical instruments:

Hundreds of musical crackers had been pulled. Most of them bore the mark DALE on them; which did not convey much to most of the hobbits, but they all agreed they were marvellous crackers. They contained instruments, small, but of perfect make and enchanting tones.

If they had watches in Middle-earth, I think they might be more of the larger pocket watch kind, which fits in the palm. I don't think any are actually mentioned, though.

 

[Eljorahir]

I can't think of any watches in the stories.

Clocks, however: Didn't Bilbo find an invitation to an Adventure next to the undusted clock on his mantel one morning after a party?

I'm away from my books, so I can't look it up at the moment.

 

[Starbrow]

Clocks were certainly existed, as you can see in one of Tolkien's illustrations for The Hobbit.
I have a vague recollection of Bilbo looking at a pocket watch, but I can't remember where in the books. I guess I'll just have to reread them to find it. 😁

 

[Deimos]

View attachment 37595
Clocks were certainly existed, as you can see in one of Tolkien's illustrations for The Hobbit.
I have a vague recollection of Bilbo looking at a pocket watch, but I can't remember where in the books. I guess I'll just have to reread them to find it. 😁

I'll bow to Tolkien (and Starbrow) on this.
But the pic is another example of Tolkien conflating the different eras of England with respect to the Shire (which doesn't bother me a bit)
The Pendulum clock was invented in 1656 by Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens.
Much of what Tolkien describes in the homes, tools, clothing, etc covers time periods from Late mediaeval to almost (but not quite) Victorian.