WATCHES FROM WALES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 9, Issue 91, 26 June 1946, Page 6

WATCHES FROM WALES

NEW BRITISH INDUSTRY PRODUCTION ON LARGE SCALE A new watch factory, in Wales which is to start production this year is the first instalment of a big new British industry which is to employ fifteen thousand men and women. Britain has always made good high grade watches, and it has left to America and Germany the job of turning out watches and clocks by the million. Switzerland, too, has been a big producer of high-grade watches. Now Britain is to make watches and blocks, on an unprecedented scale. Before the war Britain was importing eight million watches and five million clocks each year. That supply was cut off, with the consequence that thousands of people have been watchless and clockless. But the big demands for war purposes had to be satisfied. All the delicate instruments for fuses, gauges, and watches had to be made, and Britain has had 76 factories devoted to that alone. So, with the peacetime switch-over of these factories we have the beginnings of a new industry ready to our hands. At present 25 per cent, of the output of these factories is being exported. To supply skilled workers for this new industry the Government is establishing a School of Herology where young men and women are to be trained. The knowledge gained during wartime will be put into this new industry, so that the cheapest watch will be a first-class timkeeper.