John Wilter

John Wilter was an 18th-century watchmaker who had his name used fictitiously on Dutch forgeries of English watches.

[3] After finding a watch labelled 'John Wilter, London' which had characteristics that it made it appear both as an English and Dutch watch, Rebecca Struthers looked his name up in a book, Loom's Watchmakers and Clockmakers of the World, which listed Wilter as "perhaps a ficticious name".

[1] In an 1817 hearing in House of Commons, a watchmaker named Henry Clarke spoke of Wilter:[1] [He] introduced the making of watched with the feigned name of 'Wilters, London' on them; those watches were well made, and would have done credit to the maker, who should have put his name upon them; other persons speedily imitated the external appearance of the watches ... [but] those had sham day of the month, dials and hands without and wheels to move them, and also than sham appearance of having being jewelled in the pivot holes ...

each, but really were good for nothing; whereas the first introducer of watches, with that feigned name, was not overpaid at eight guineas each.This caused Struthers to realise that John Wilter was simultaneously real and fictitious.

Struthers suggested that the name was created by a Dutch merchant that wanted a forgery to sound as if it was made in England.