The Lancashire Watch Company of

Prescot Prescot is a town and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley in Merseyside, England. Within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire, it lies about to the east of Liverpool city centre. At the 2001 Census, the civ ...

was founded in 1889 by Thomas P. Hewitt as a rival to the large American and Swiss watch companies. It failed in 1910.

History

Until the late 19th century, Prescot had been the centre of the

watchmaking A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since a majority of watches are now factory-made, most modern watchmakers only repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their par ...

trade in England. The workers produced watch parts in small workshops attached to their cottages and were paid by

piece work Piece work (or piecework) is any type of employment in which a worker is paid a fixed piece rate for each unit produced or action performed, regardless of time. Context When paying a worker, employers can use various methods and combinations of ...

. By 1889 the '' American System of Watch Manufacturing'' meant that the

Waltham Watch Company The Waltham Watch Company, also known as the American Waltham Watch Co. and the American Watch Co., was a company that produced about 40 million watches, clocks, speedometers, compasses, time delay fuses, and other precision instruments in the Un ...

and others could produce watches at a much lower price and the town fell into decline. In 1889 a company was formed and eventually a large factory was built to create complete watches under one roof. The products produced had more in common with earlier American designs than traditional English

fusee Fusee or fusée may refer to: * Fusee (horology), a component of a clock * Flare, a pyrotechnic device sometimes called a Fusee * Fusee, an old word for "flintlock Flintlock is a general term for any firearm that uses a flint-striking lock (fi ...

watches. Because of

economies of scale In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...

the Lancashire Watch Company struggled to compete with the larger American and Swiss factories. It could not make a profit and went bankrupt in 1910. Thomas P Hewitt's watch was sold at Christies Auction in 1995 fetching $215,000, purchased by Robbie Dickson; a well-known historical watch collector.

References

Sources

*''The Lancashire Watch Company: Prescot, Lancashire, England 1889-1910.'', Roberts, Kenneth D., Alan Smith, Henry G. Abbett, Ken Roberts Publishing, New Hampshire 1973 *''Lancashire Watch Company History and Watches'' by John G Platt. Published by inbeat publications, Chester, UK; printed by Cambrian Printers, Aberystwyth, Wales; May 2016

External links

Prescot Museum
Defunct watchmaking companies History of Merseyside

History

References

Sources

Further reading

External links