A TIME TO SHINE

The relationship, which lasted for more than a decade, was one of Robert's earliest industrial design commissions and saw him create dozens of timepieces from small alarm clocks to large wall clocks.
More than 50 million clocks were sold during Robert's years with Westclox, but the commission's significance stretched beyond sales. It transformed a young silversmith working from a drawing board in the Cotswolds into one of Britain's most influential industrial designers, opening the door to government commissions and international recognition.
Some of his designs were traditional, some strikingly modern – bold expressions of post-war modernism. The Benita table clock, made from enamelled metal and glass, was his first Westclox design in 1956. There followed sculptural ceramic designs; brass sunburst wall clocks; cog-shaped cast iron pieces; clocks shaped like submarine periscopes; cube-like digital desk clocks; office wall clocks and even an extra-loud Clearcall alarm clock for the hard-of-hearing.

Among the most iconic was the Westclox Merlin alarm clock. Long before the smart speaker, its cheery, carmine red, plastic clam-shaped case was a familiar face on Britain's bedside tables – and remained so for decades.
Merlin's electric mechanism was groundbreaking. It featured a 24-hour alarm with automatic resetting and a locking switch for when the alarm wasn't set. A wooden prototype with a dial by Fletcher Forbes Gill – the forerunner of design powerhouse Pentagram – was deemed 'too far ahead of [its] time' and boxed up and returned to Chipping Campden. Today, it is preserved in our temperature-controlled archive.

Robert's final Merlin design was produced in red, Spanish gold or white plastic, had a white dial printed with simple black numerals and minute dots, and glow-in-the-dark strips on the hands for nocturnal timekeeping.
It was the most technical and aesthetically innovative design that Robert ever created for Westclox. But despite winning a Design Centre Award in 1964, Merlin was a late bloomer. At the time, Westclox's chairman noted: "CoID [Council of Industrial Design] styles just don't sell."

Five years later, it was at last Merlin's time to shine, and an explosion of these colourful consumer icons appeared in homes everywhere as the world finally woke up to Pop Art culture.

Presiding over tens of thousands of offices, schools and factories in the Sixties and Seventies was Robert's 24-hour Manager wall clock for Westclox.
With its moulded plastic casing and aluminium dial, these no-nonsense design heavyweights were, for decades, used by millions to measure lunchbreaks, lessons and long night shifts.
Made in two dinner plate-sizes, with a range of dials from Roman numerals to clear, modern numbers, the Manager range was designed to be clearly clocked from a distance. You'll still find them in hundreds of buildings today.

Just a year after the Manager was launched, the Ministry of Public Building and Works commissioned a similar clock for its government offices.
The Ministry had taken over the War Office's works department and was overseeing the construction of museums, courts and other official buildings. It managed royal residences, commissioning much of Britain's post-war architecture, furniture, interiors, clocks and signposting for government buildings. Robert's meticulous scale drawings preserved in the archive show the military precision with which this clock was conceived.
"With its simple dial of spun aluminium, dark green plastic casing and bold graphic lines indicating hours and minutes, it was a veritable tour de force of modern purposeful design," reads the book Robert Welch: Design, Craft and Industry. "Today, it is difficult to comprehend just how modern this minimalistic design must have seemed... most British clocks were highly decorative in design, verging on the fussy.”

Robert's clocks made it to Heal's in London's Tottenham Court Road, in 1967, to a one-man show of his work. Alongside silverware and his space-age Lumitron lights, cast iron Campden Designs products and Old Hall stainless-steel stalwarts were his Westclox clocks.
It was this exhibition that planted the seed for Robert's Studio Shop in Chipping Campden, in an 18th century ale house on the corner of Sheep Street – where it remains a jewel in the company's crown.
"I could see the idea of mixing domestic silver and product design was a good one," wrote Robert. "It was this idea which was the germ of the Studio Shop."

Today, the shop – opened a few days before Christmas 1969 – remains the only place in the world where you can see the whole Robert Welch collection and attracts visitors from all around the world. At the back is a fascinating timeline of Robert's career, accompanied by archive photographs. In one, you'll spot the Manager clock.
Robert Welch Archivist Charlotte Booth says: “The archive is a treasure trove of designs past, and this is a timely reminder that many of Robert Welch’s industrial products were created anonymously.
"Without the foresight he had to preserve so much material in the attic at the Old Silk Mill, it might easily have been forgotten that he and his associate designers were responsible for a remarkable body of clock design during the 1950s and 1960s. These discoveries continue to reshape and enrich our understanding of the breadth of the studio’s work.”
Decades after they first appeared on office walls, Robert's timeless timepieces continue to demonstrate the clarity, ingenuity and enduring appeal of great British design.