Huygens, the inventor of the pendulum clock, also invented the balance wheel in 1675.
In the same year, the English clockmaker Thomas Tompion also invented his own balance wheel, based on an idea from his friend Robert Hooke.
A pendulum is isochronous, meaning that it maintains the same cycle even if its amplitude changes. This provided a key to developing accurate timepieces, but it also had a flaw. The problem was that a jolt to the pendulum would interrupt its oscillation and cause it to stop. For these reasons, pendulum clocks could not be moved or carried about and could not be used on ships.

This escapement had no anchor, but instead kept the clock turning at a constant speed by means of a half cylinder on the axle of the balance, which repeatedly halted and released the pallet of the escape wheel as it turned.

The recoil escapement included a step in which the anchor pushed the escape wheel in the opposite direction. This design flaw reduced accuracy and put strain on the whole clock mechanism. The one to improve this flaw was the English clockmaker George Graham, a follower of Tompion. In 1715 he invented the “deadbeat escapement” for clocks.*

By improving the shape of the pallet (the part where the anchor meets with the escape wheel), Graham was able to eliminate recoil. Instead of producing a recoil motion, Graham’s design fully stopped the escape wheel momentarily. For this reason it was named the “deadbeat.” This mechanism was a breakthrough in the history of timepieces. With the elimination of recoil in the gears, the time of contact between the pallets and the escape wheel was reduced. Thanks to this, the isochronism of the pendulum was maintained and the second hand would stop precisely, without rebounding.