Talk:David Stewart Dawson

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"Who watches the Police?"

David claimed late in life that his start in watch manufacturing came in 1871 when the Liverpool Police invited tenders to supply pocket watches to the constabulary. The story told was that he bid for and won the tender and later exploited his purported success with advertisements using the catchphrase: “Who watches the police?”. This is almost certainly a myth. He was still in Glasgow in 1871 <ref> Scotland. 1871 Scotland Census.Parish: Glasgow Govan; ED: 23; Page: 8; Line: 24; Roll: CSSCT1871_139, moved to Liverpool early in 1872 and only began manufacturing and selling watches in about 1876 <ref> Advertisement, Gippsland Times 13th June 1884: “About seven years ago Stewart, Dawson & Co, Liverpool introduced a new system of business in the English watch trade, viz. instead of continuing to sell their watches on credit with long accounts they resolved to go direct to the public themselves and sell their manufacture for cash.” There is no record of the Liverpool police inviting tenders for watches at any time in the 1870s <ref> Liverpool Police Museum. The watchmaker who won a police tender in 1876 and used the catchphrase in advertisements in the Dundee Evening Telegraph was HJ Norris of Coventry <ref> Bury Free Press 30th December 1876.Alportian (talk) 05:59, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]