Ingersoll Watch Company

Infobox Company
company_name = Ingersoll Watch Company
company_
company_type = Family business
foundation = 1882
owner = Robert Hawley and Charles Henry Ingersoll
location = New York City
industry = Watch manufacturing

Ingersoll started in 1882 when 21 year old Robert Hawley Ingersoll and his brother Charles Henry started a mail order business in New York City selling low-cost items such as rubber stamps. The company was called at this time R H Ingersoll & Bro. The first watches were introduced into the catalogue in 1892, supplied by the Waterbury Clock Company.

In 1896 Ingersoll introduced the "Yankee" watch priced at $1.00. It was cheaply mass produced from stamped parts and without jewels so that it would be affordable to everyone. They were producing 8,000 per day by 1899, and started advertising that 10,000 dealers carried their "dollar watch." Over twenty years nearly forty million of these watches were sold, and Ingersoll coined the phrase "The watch that made the dollar famous!" Theodore Roosevelt mentioned that during his hunting trip in Africa he was described as "the man from the country where Ingersoll was produced."

In 1904 Ingersoll opened a store in London, England. In 1905 Robert sailed to England and introduced the "Crown" pocket watch for 5 shillings, which was the same value as $1 at the time. These were made by a British subsidiary, Ingersoll Ltd, initially assembled from imported parts, and later made entirely in their London factory. These watches were made until the late 1920s, after the American parent company had collapsed.

Ingersoll bought the Trenton Watch Company in 1908, and the New England Watch Company in 1914. By 1916, the company was producing 16,000 watches per day in 10 different models. In 1917 they produced another popular watch with 7 jewels called the "Reliance". In 1919 Ingersoll developed a watch with the so called "night design", the "Radiolite" with luminoious dial.

During the recession that followed World War One, the Ingersoll Watch Company went bankrupt in 1921. It was bought by Waterbury Clock in 1922 for $1,500,000. In 1942 U.S. Time Corporation acquired Waterbury Clock and continued using the Ingersoll brand.

After the second world war (WW2), the British company, Ingersoll Ltd, joined with Smiths Industries Ltd and Vickers Armstrong in setting up the Anglo-Celtic Company Ltd on the Ynyscedwyn estate. This was on the outskirts of the village of Ystradgynlais, near to Swansea in Wales. The first model featured the same movement as the earlier British Ingersolls, now designated calibre PY. These watches were branded Ingersoll Triumph and Smiths Empire. Ingersoll Ltd pulled out of the venture in 1969. Between 1946 and 1980, when the factory closed down, over 30,000,000 watches were made, and exported to 60 different countries throughout the world.