Imperial Typewriter Company

Last updated
Police in front of Imperial Typewriter in Evington, Leicester during a protest march in 1974 Police in front of Imperial Typewriter in Leicester England August 1974.jpg
Police in front of Imperial Typewriter in Evington, Leicester during a protest march in 1974

The Imperial Typewriter Company was a British manufacturer of typewriters based in Leicester, England.

Contents

The company was founded by Hidalgo Moya, an American-Spanish engineer who lived in England. After first building the Moya typewriter, he set up the Imperial Typewriter Company in Leicester in 1911 with local businessmen John Gordon Chattaway, William Arthur Evans [1] and Joseph Wallis Goddard. [2] It stopped manufacturing typewriters when electric models and then word processors and personal computers became popular, causing typewriter sales to fall.

The company was acquired by Litton Industries in 1966, and gradually introduced Royal Typewriter Company models largely assembled from parts shipped from Hartford, Connecticut, United States. In May 1974, Asian workers at the Imperial Typewriter Company in Leicester went on strike over unequal bonus payments and discrimination in promotion. The shop stewards committee and Transport & General Workers Union branch refused their support, but the strikers stayed on strike for almost 14 weeks. The manufacture of typewriters ceased at Leicester and Hull in 1975. [3]

Models

Imperial model B typewriter Imperial model B Cyrillic.jpg
Imperial model B typewriter
Imperial model 50 typewriter Imperial model 50.jpg
Imperial model 50 typewriter

Related Research Articles

General Motors American automotive manufacturing company

General Motors Company (GM) is an American multinational automotive manufacturing company. Headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, the company is the largest automobile manufacturer based in the United States and one of the largest worldwide. It was the largest automaker worldwide for 77 consecutive years, from 1931 when it overtook Ford Motor Company, until 2008, when it was overtaken by Toyota.

Typewriter (Electro-)mechanical writing apparatus

A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectively against the paper with a type element. At the end of the nineteenth century, the term 'typewriter' was also applied to a person who used such a device.

Leicester City and unitary authority area in England

Leicester is a city, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England.

Royal Mail Postal service company in the United Kingdom

Royal Mail Group plc is a British multinational postal service and courier company, originally established in 1516 as a government department. The company's subsidiary Royal Mail Group Limited operates the brands Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide (parcels). GLS Group, an international logistics company, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Mail Group. The group used the name Consignia for a brief period in the early 2000s.

Remington Rand was an early American business machine manufacturer, best known originally as a typewriter manufacturer and in a later incarnation as the manufacturer of the UNIVAC line of mainframe computers. Formed in 1927 following a merger, Remington Rand was a diversified conglomerate making other office equipment, electric shavers, etc. The Remington Rand Building at 315 Park Avenue South in New York City is a 20-floor skyscraper completed in 1911. After 1955, Remington Rand had a long list of mergers and acquisitions that eventually resulted in the formation of Unisys.

Milk float Vehicle for delivering milk

A milk float is a vehicle specifically designed for the delivery of fresh milk. Today, milk floats are usually battery electric vehicles (BEV), but they were formerly horse-drawn. They were once common in many European countries, particularly the United Kingdom, and were operated by local dairies. However, in recent years, as the number of supermarkets, small independent grocers and petrol stations, and convenience stores stocking fresh milk has increased, many people have switched from regular home delivery to obtaining fresh milk from these other sources.

Hansen Writing Ball

The Hansen Writing Ball is an early typewriter. It was invented in 1865 and patented and put into production in 1870, and was the first commercially produced typewriter.

Olivetti S.p.A.

Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been part of the Gruppo TIM since 2003. One of the first commercial programmable desktop calculators, the Programma 101, was produced by Olivetti in 1964 and was a commercial success.

Underwood Typewriter Company American typewriter manufacturing company

The Underwood Typewriter Company was a manufacturer of typewriters headquartered in New York City, New York with manufacturing facilities in Hartford, Connecticut. Underwood produced what is considered the first widely successful, modern typewriter. By 1939, Underwood had produced five million machines.

Olivetti Lettera 22 Italian design typewriter model

The Olivetti Lettera 22[oliˈvetti ˈlɛttera ventiˈdue] is a portable mechanical typewriter designed by Marcello Nizzoli in 1949 or, according to the company's current owner Telecom Italia, 1950. This typewriter was very popular in Italy, and it still has many fans. It was awarded the Compasso d'oro prize in 1954. In 1959 the Illinois Institute of Technology chose the Lettera 22 as the best design product of the last 100 years.

Blickensderfer typewriter

The Blickensderfer Typewriter was invented by George Canfield Blickensderfer (1850–1917) and patented on August 4, 1891. Blickensderfer was the nephew of the inventor of the stenotype John Celivergos Zachos. Two models were initially unveiled to the public at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the Model 1 and the Model 5. His machines were originally intended to compete with larger Remington, Hammond and Yost typewriters, and were the first truly portable, full-keyboard typewriters. The design also enabled the typist to see the typed work at a time when most typewriters were understrike machines that concealed the writing. When Blickensderfer unveiled his small Model 5 at the 1893 World's Fair, a stripped-down version of his larger more complex Model 1 machine, these revolutionary features attracted huge crowds and a full order book – many of them from Britain, Germany and France, whose business machine markets were more highly developed than the United States.

The Royal Typewriter Company is a manufacturer of typewriters founded in January 1904. It was headquartered in New York City with its factory in Hartford, Connecticut.

Ruston (engine builder) Industrial equipment manufacturer in Lincoln, England founded in 1918

Ruston & Hornsby was an industrial equipment manufacturer in Lincoln, England founded in 1918. The company is best known as a manufacturer of narrow and standard gauge diesel locomotives and also of steam shovels. Other products included cars, steam locomotives and a range of internal combustion engines, and later gas turbines. It is now a subsidiary of Siemens.

Smith Corona is an American manufacturer of thermal labels, direct thermal labels, and thermal ribbons used in warehouses for primarily barcode labels. Once a large U.S. typewriter and mechanical calculator manufacturer, it expanded aggressively during the 1960s to become a broad-based industrial conglomerate whose products extended to paints, foods, and paper. The mechanical calculator sector was wiped out in the early 1970s by the production of cheap electronic calculators, and the typewriter business collapsed in the mid-1980s due to the introduction of PC-based word processing.

General Motors Europe Europes division of General Motors

General Motors Europe was responsible for the operation of General Motors ("GM") businesses in Europe. The subsidiary was established by GM in 1986 and operated 14 production and assembly facilities in 9 countries, and employed around 54,500 people. GM's core European brands were Vauxhall and Opel, which both sell much the same range of cars in different markets. GM also owned the Swedish brand Saab until early 2010 and sold Chevrolet models between 2005 and 2015. The U.S. brand Cadillac is imported into Europe in small quantities. In 2009, General Motors (GM) announced to move its European headquarters from Zürich, Switzerland to Rüsselsheim, Germany to strengthen its German subsidiary Opel.

Skil Brand name of power tools

SKIL Power Tools is a brand of electric power tools and accessories which is based in Naperville, Illinois, United States. It is a subsidiary of Chervon, a company based in Nanjing, China.

Ursus SA Was Polish agricultural machinery producer

Ursus SA is a Polish agricultural machinery manufacturer, headquartered in Lublin, Poland. The company was founded in Warsaw in 1893, and has strong historic roots regarding Polish tractor production history. It has also carried out some production of trolleybuses in a joint venture with the Ukrainian manufacturer Bogdan, and manufactures buses, coaches, and trolleybuses in a joint venture with AMZ Kutno under the name Ursus Bus.

The Oliver Typewriter Company was an American typewriter manufacturer headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The Oliver Typewriter was one of the first "visible print" typewriters, meaning text was visible to the typist as it was entered. Oliver typewriters were marketed heavily for home use, using local distributors and sales on credit. Oliver produced more than one million machines between 1895 and 1928 and licensed its designs to several international firms.

The Olivetti company, an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines, was founded as a typewriters manufacturer by Camillo Olivetti in 1908 in the Turin commune of Ivrea, Italy.

Megger Group Limited

Megger Group Limited is a British manufacturing company that manufactures electronic test equipment and measuring instruments for electrical power applications.

References

  1. Leicester Lit & Phil Society
  2. "The Eccentric Brain Behind Imperial Typewriters". 21 June 2013. Archived from the original on 16 April 2014. Retrieved 1 May 2018.
  3. "European Typewriters / Britain / Imperial 2". 28 October 2009. Archived from the original on 28 October 2009.CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)