National Time Recorder Company
NTR was one of the two largest UK manufacturers of time recorders. National Time Recorder Company Ltd was incorporated in 1917 (company number 146424), though had possibly been founded around 10 years earlier in 1907. The head office and factory were originally based in Blackfriars, London. The premises were moved in 1951 to the Lagoon Works in St. Mary Cray (Orpington), Kent, on the site of the Blue Lagoon swimming pool which had been damaged during the war. Additional branches were established in London, Birmingham, Bristol, Dublin, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, and Sheffield.
NTR designed and sold several models from 1917 onward. Some of these evolved over the decades, giving rise to numerous identifiable variants according to their age. The company’s product range included dial, key, autograph, and card recorders – please refer to the Models page for more details of each of these clock types.
From 1920, many models were customised for sale by Blick Time Recorders Ltd, a company with which NTR had a known trading partnership, and which eventually took over NTR in 1972. The company also had a trading partnership with British Time Recorders Ltd which sold many of their machines, though sometimes modified, under the BeTaR brand name. Clocks would often have the paper dial cover or metal dial replaced when sold or serviced. As such, many NTR clocks can be found with the local sales and service companies’ names on the dial in place of the NTR name, for example ‘Time Recorders (Leeds) Ltd’.