Imperial Typewriter Company

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

Police in front of Imperial Typewriter in Evington, Leicester during a protest march in 1974

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 50 typewriter
  • Imperial A
  • Imperial B
  • Imperial C
  • Imperial D
  • Imperial Doppelganger (see external link)
  • Imperial model 50
  • Imperial model 55
  • Imperial model 60
  • Imperial model 65
  • Imperial model 66
  • Imperial model 70
  • Imperial model 80 (Royal)
  • Imperial model 90
  • Imperial Electric
  • Imperial model 200
  • Imperial War Finish model
  • The Good Companion model 1
  • The Good Companion model 2
  • The Good Companion model 3
  • The Good Companion model 4
  • The Good Companion model 5
  • The Good Companion model 6/6T
  • Imperial Safari model
  • Imperial Messenger Portable Typewriter
  • Imperial Signet Portable Typewriter
  • Imperial Pavey Musigraph

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)


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