Dundee’s Timex story to be brought back to life in new £60,000 McManus exhibition
- Andrew Batchelor
- 11 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Dundee’s Timex story is set to be explored in a new exhibition after Leisure and Culture Dundee secured £60,000 in museum funding from Museum Galleries Scotland.
The money will support a new project at The McManus: Dundee’s Art Gallery & Museum called Generation Timex – Exploring the legacies of Timex in Dundee, which will delve into the huge impact the watchmaker once had on the city.
Timex was one of Dundee’s major employers and helped shape the city’s industrial and social landscape for decades, with generations of local families connected to the factory.
Today, much of the company’s later history in Dundee is remembered through the bitter industrial dispute and strikes which preceded the closure of the factory in 1993.
The new McManus project will look beyond that final chapter, using the museum’s existing Timex collection alongside the memories and experiences of former employees.
Museum staff will work with ex-Timex workers and organisations across Dundee to develop a collaborative exhibition exploring what the company meant to the city and the people who worked there.
The £60,000 award forms part of £684,108 being distributed to 12 museums and heritage organisations across Scotland through the latest round of Museums Galleries Scotland’s Museum Development Fund.
Lucy Casot, chief executive of Museums Galleries Scotland, said the successful projects demonstrated the important role museums play as places for learning, community engagement and preserving cultural heritage.
She added that the funding would help museums share previously untold stories, involve communities in shaping their work and improve how collections are cared for and presented.
Other recipients across Scotland include the People’s Palace in Glasgow, The Hunterian, Shetland Museum, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the University of Aberdeen.
For Dundee, however, the funding will provide an opportunity to revisit one of the most significant chapters in the city’s more recent industrial history – and put the voices of the people who lived through the Timex era at the heart of the story.
