quote icon Originally Posted by dicey
When I was younger I only knew Ingersoll as a watchmaker. Five years ago someone told me about Ingersoll locks and at first I thought that the watchmaker would also produce locks. I do not think that the watchmaker has anything to do with the lock maker but I have no information on that. It would be interesting to know more about that.
Ingersoll watches of America, who also had a fairly large operation in the UK, went into liquidation in the early years of the 20th century. The directors bought the UK Company from the liquidators. With the approaching WWII hostilities a separate company was formed, Ingersoll Engineering Ltd. and expanded into light engineering. This was a tactical move to preserve the workforce from callup and demonstrates great foresight by management. Both companies operated out of the same premises.

Jack Taylor who was already head designer at Yale with a string of patents to his name was ordered by MAP (Ministry of Aircraft Production) to Ingersoll to design a reliable locking payload release mechanism. Bombs rolling around inside the aircraft in flight were a problem and most undesirable!