George Graham, (circa 1673-1751) was born in Fordingbridge, Westmorland, and apprenticed in London to Henry Aske until 1695. Immediately afterwards he went to work for Thomas Tompion as a journeyman and in 1704 married his Master's niece, Elizabeth Tompion, and soon afterwards went into partnership with Tompion. In addition to his natural eye for proportion and design Graham invented the deadbeat escapement in 1715, and in 1726 both the mercury pendulum and the cylinder escapement for watches. Whilst he is purported to have made some 3,000 watches he made only about 200 clocks of which a very small proportion were longcase. Dubbed by his contemporaries as 'Honest George Graham' he died a wealthy man and was buried in Westminster Abbey in the same grave as Thomas Tompion.