Timex Group B.V. is the parent of Timex Group USA, Inc., formerly known as Timex Corporation until 2008. The latter is located in Middlebury Connecticut, and began in 1854 as Waterbury Clock in Connecticut’s Naugatuck Valley, known during the nineteenth century as the “Switzerland of America.” Waterbury, CT based brass manufacturer Benedict & Burnham created Waterbury Clock Company as a clock-making subsidiary in the advent of brass gears being introduced to clock-making.

Waterbury Clock Company was legally incorporated on March 27, 1857 as an independent business with $60,000 in capital. Sister company Waterbury Watch manufactured the first inexpensive mechanical pocket watch in 1880. During World War I, Waterbury began making wristwatches, which had only just become popular, and in 1933 it made history by creating the first Mickey Mouse clock under license from Walt Disney, with Mickey’s hands pointing the time. This was made under the Ingersoll brand.

In 1940, the company came under the ownership of Thomas Olsen and Joakim Lehmkuhl and was renamed the Time Corporation in the United States. Watches with the Timex brand name were first used in 1946 with a small shipment of nurses’ watches. The “X” suffix “was used to evoke a sense of technological advancement.