Another unexpected bonus from Project Typewriter Tidy-Up last weekend was that I finally got around to "dealing with" my Imperial Model 50 standard typewriter. For the obvious reasons of size, weight and the space they take up, I keep as few standard-size typewriters as possible. The exceptions are typewriters I feel are essential to my collection, such as the Remington 2, Underwood 5, Smith Premier 10, Royal 10 and Fox 24 (and not counting Hammonds, Olivers, Yosts, Adler 7-Empires or the Royals 1 and 5, which I don't consider to be quite standard-size anyway). While I wouldn't rate the Imperial Model 50 as "essential" to this collection, I couldn't bring myself to part with it. It just looked so grand, so impressive.
But I had made a few vain attempts to fix it before Sunday, and had quickly given up each time. "I'll come back to it another day," I kept promising myself, placing the Imperial Model 50 back into the "too hard basket". Well, yesterday was "another day". Expecting a call from Lea at any minute, I felt it was a case of "now or never".
Eric Pilblad
Even before Moya and Goddard died in 1927, Evans and Pilblad had decided Imperial should make a conventional standard-size typewriter. The task of designing this fell to Pateman, still the company's works manager but also now its head design mechanical engineer.
Hidalgo Moya
Pateman began taking out British, French and Italian patents on the Model 50 in 1925 and in the US in 1926. The Model 50 started production in 1927. The machine seen here, serial number H2708, was made in 1935.Over the years Pateman rose through the ranks at Imperial to become a director, managing director and finally board chairman. According to a biography of him in the "Diamond Jubilee 1902-1962" issue of Imperial News, he was "responsible for the design and success of Imperial typewriters". Pateman died in Norfolk on August 28, 1972, aged 86.
What will now become of my Imperial Model 50? Having finally fixed it, and used it, I think I will give it to a good home.