LONDON, England (CNN)  -- A glimpse of something shiny on the ocean floor nine years ago led a Welsh diver to uncover a piece of local history that had been forgotten for more than a century. The silver pocket watch was found off the Pembrokeshire coast in Wales. Diver Rich Hughes was exploring a shallow shipwreck off the Pembrokeshire coast in April 2000 when he noticed the object embedded in sediment. He thought at first that he had found a coin, but he found it was actually an intact silver pocket watch, still bearing the inscription of its owner. Hughes said he was determined to trace the history of the watch, believing such a prized object deserved to belong to family members or a local museum. But that led Hughes on a nine-year search with lots of dead ends and few leads.
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Diver finds watch on sea floor off Welsh coast, spends years tracing its history
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Diver discovers watch originally belonged to Richard Prichard, captain of the Barbara
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Prichard died at sea in 1881; watch was probably being returned to his widow
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Watch was lost when Barbara was shipwrecked in driving rain, gale-force winds
Rich Hughes
Hughes
Hughes
Now, months after enlisting the help of a local researcher, @placeholder has finally tracked down a family member and will be presenting the watch to him next week.
Richard Prichard
Prichard
That was the only information Hughes had to go on for most of the past nine years; even the name of @placeholder's ship was a mystery at the time.
Welsh
Wales
Welsh
The watch was lost on the Barbara's return trip to @placeholder with a cargo of rice later that year.
Pembrokeshire
Pembrokeshire
Hughes said the captain would probably have been filled with fear to see the cliffs of the @placeholder coastline in front of him, where waves that night were probably at heights of 30 to 40 feet.