Aaron Lufkin Dennison (March 6, 1812 – January 9, 1895) was an American watchmaker and businessman. He is mainly known for his eponymous line of timepieces Dennison and for the invention of the mainspring gauge. Dennison was also the founder of Waltham Watch Company and responsible for the creation of many watch parts for Rolex and Omega in their early stages of mass production.
Early life
Dennison was born in Freeport, Maine, after which the family moved to Brunswick, Maine. He was the son of Andrew Dennison, a boot and shoemaker who was also a music teacher. As a child, Aaron earned pocket money by carrying a builder's hod, working as a herdsman, and as a clerk to a businessman. Later he cut and sold wood and then worked for his father in the cobbler's shop until the age of 18. While there, he suggested the making of shoes in batches rather than one by one.
Training in watchmaking
In 1830, at the age of 18, Aaron was apprenticed to a Brunswick clockmaker, James Cary. During his apprenticeship, he is said to have made an automatic machine for cutting clock wheels, however in his autobiography he merely says he wanted “to cut all the wheels of a corresponding size in each [of a batch of clocks] at once and in other ways facilitate the work”. (Automatic watchmaking machinery was not developed until the 1860s and Dennison's machine was probably a modification of an ordinary wheel cutting engine).
At age 21, Aaron declined the offer of a partnership with Cary and went to Boston, to work with the most skillful people he could find who were engaged in watch repairing. He worked for three months without pay at the jewelers Currier & Trott and then stayed another five months on wages.
In 1834, he started his own business as a watch repairer, but after two years he gave it up and obtained a position with Jones, Low & Ball and he worked there until 1839 under master watchmaker Tubal Howe. Here he learned the methods used by English and Swiss watchmakers.
In 1839, Dennison moved to New York City, where he spent several months with a colony of Swiss watchmakers engaged in various branches of the watch trade.
Dennison then returned to Boston and set up a business selling watches, tools and materials and doing repair work. During this time he created the Dennison Combined Gauge for measuring mainsprings and other watch parts.
Marriage
In 1840, Aaron married Charlotte Ware Foster (1811–1901) of Massachusetts. They had five children: Charlotte Elizabeth (1842), Alice (1845), Edward Boardman (1847), Ethie Gilbert 1850 and Franklin (1854). After several years of thought, he conceived a plan to do so, even making a scale model. (Regarding the machinery, Dennison later admitted he had no ability as a machinist.
In 1864, Aaron Dennison and A. O. Bigelow set up the Tremont Watch Company in Boston. The idea was that fine parts (such as escapements and wheel trains) would be made in Switzerland (where journeyman wages were lower than American wages), and the larger parts (such as barrel plates) and assembling would be done in America.
So Dennison went to Zurich, Switzerland, where he organized the manufacture and delivery of parts to Tremont.
In 1866, without the support of Aaron who was not consulted, the directors decided to move the factory to Melrose and make complete watches there, and Dennison withdrew from the company. The Melrose Watch Company failed in 1870. In 1879, Alfred Wigley joined Aaron to form the firm of Dennison, Wigley & Company. Following Aaron Dennison's death in 1895, his son Franklin became a partner in the firm. This very successful company continued until 1905 when it was renamed the Dennison Watch, and that company continued until 1967.