Kelton/Timex
History
After the formation of Ingersoll Ltd in Britain in 1930, the American based Waterbury Watch Co continued production in America of jewelled and non-jewelled 'Ingersoll' branded watches. In late-1941, Waterbury was acquired by two Norwegian-Jew refugees, Thomas Olsen (of the Fred Olsen shipping family) and Joakim Lehmkuhl. They were soon making time-fuzes for the war effort at a new factory and later adopted a new hardened 'Armalloy' metal alloy for 'jewel-free' movement bearing surfaces. Their Waterbury (Ingersoll) business became the United States Time Corporation in 1944 (later better known simply as Timex). Also in 1944, with the British government preparing for a post-war watch industry, the United States Time Corp proposed a manufacturing plant in Britain, to which Vickers suggested their Team Valley, Gateshead works; an offer turned down, but the United States Time Corporation did go on to acquire a 44-acre site under a Government Development scheme at Camperdown, West Dundee, Scotland in 1946. Assembly of American parts (later British-made and Ingersoll PY movements) began on 23rd December 1947 with eight girls at the nearby Dryburgh Farmhouse as they awaited the new factory's opening in March 1948. These non-jewelled, shock-resistant watches were initially marketed from late-summer 1948 as 'Kelton' and distributed by their new UK Time Company of Bond Street, London, priced at 39/0d for a pocket-watch and between 55/0d and 73/0d for centre-secs wrist-watches.
As with the Ingersoll brothers, they concentrated on mass production of a basic pin-pallet job which they introduced in the USA in 1950 as the budget 'Timex' which, like Ingersoll before them, was marketed outside of the restrictive jewellery trade; at this they succeeded and soon gained 33% of the US market! Their second 'Timex' factory opened in 1954 in Harrison Road, Dundee and in 1957 they introduced a range of dust/water-resistant 'Cygnet' ladies and shock-resistant, boy-proof 'Ranger' watches.
In spring 1959 they bought the 'Laco' budget watch business and factory in West Germany. By 1960, Timex was producing 8 million watches a year from their several world-wide factories but by the 1970s had turned to electronic and digital watches, produced mainly in the Far East as their Dundee plant took on the contract-assembly of Polaroid instant cameras until 1975, and of Clive Sinclair's miniature pocket-televisions and computers until 1984; the works closed soon after and is now a listed building.
