The History of the Self-Winding Watch
At a time when watchmakers across Europe were competing to create new technology, one of the most significant developments in horology, the self-winding movement, came to be. Its origins are murky, as there are several accounts of people producing self-winding movements around the same time. However, the most prominent of those people, Abraham-Louis Breguet, is accredited with having invented one of the better versions of the self-winding movement, and one that has endured as the basis for subsequent automatic watch movements.
Officially, Breguet invented the 'Perpétuelle', which is a self-winding movement that relies on a central rotor, or more specifically, on an oscillating weight, triggered by the wearer’s motion, to charge the springs. The first Perpétuelle was commissioned by King Louis XVI and gifted by Breguet to Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orleans, in 1780. It is believed that Breguet made a total of 80 to 90 pieces, of which 60 were sold between 1787 and 1823.
He is not regarded as the inventor of the self-winding movement himself, but perhaps was presumed to be for some time as his Perpétuelle was very popular and technologically innovative.