More information on the Dennison early years, and electric lights, can be gained from the Vintage Watchstraps site.
“After much searching he (ADL) found investors in Birmingham, England, who were prepared to put up the capital to buy the Melrose machinery and form a watchmaking company.
The company was initially called The Anglo-American Watch Company. The watches were understandably American in nature, with going barrels rather than fusees, and the initial products, uncased movements, were sent to America for sale, but there was little demand because of a financial recession at the time meaning that the market was already over supplied.
The name of the company was changed in February 1874 to The English Watch Company, presumably indicating a change in focus to selling watches on the British market. It appears that Dennison left the company at around this time.
In 1874 Dennison set up a watch case manufactory in the Handsworth area of Birmingham which eventually became the Dennison Watch Case Company. The early history of the company is rather unknown, despite the best efforts of Philip Priestley with the help of descendants of the founder to uncover it. A date of 1875 is suggested by a long service award to William McBeth in 1929 in recognition of 54 years service from the foundation of the company. However, it is generally believed that the business was started in 1874, coinciding with the establishment in Britain of a branch of the American Waltham Watch Company. Waltham began importing movements from its American factory and was desperate to find someone who could make the large numbers of cases required.
A record in the Birmingham Trade Directory of 1876 indicates a possibility that Edward Howard, one of the founders of the American company with Dennison and Davis in 1850, might have been an investor. Alfred Wigley, an engraver, polisher and springer of watchcases, was involved in some way right from the start, eventually becoming a partner in 1879. The company was called Dennison, Wigley & Company from 1879 until 1905.
In August 1888 The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith reported that Dennison & Wigley were making watch cases so successfully as to be able to send quantities to America in spite of the import duty charged on them. The company employed at the time 100 hands and the factory was ‘lighted throughout with electric light’.”
Aaron Dennison and The Dennison Watch Case Company
www.vintagewatchstraps.com