WELLINGTON Museum has been given a time clock which was last used in at Fox Brothers’ Woollen Mill Power House in July 1967.

The machine has been carefully restored over several years by Chris Britten from North Petherton who volunteers at Westonzoyland Pumping Station where the time clock had been kept.

The machine was used to record the time workers arrived at and left their place of work.

The worker clocks in or out by first pulling the handle on the side of the machine. This rings a bell, stamps the time on a roll of paper inside the machine and then opens a flap to allow the worker to sign their name beside the time. The new arrival then moves the handle back to its original position, which shuts the flap and moves the paper on.

The machine is in working order, except that the time is not stamped on the paper because the unique specialist ink ribbon has run dry.

Along with the machine came what may be the last roll of paper to be used when it was at Tonedale.

It appears that on Tuesday, July 18, 1967, B Manley clocked in at 7.48 and J Ackroyd at 8.53. Other people clocking in that day were R Drew, F Santon, R Powell, Shirley Jennings and a couple of other people with indecipherable signatures. The time clock is on display in Wellington Museum, Fore Street, which is open 10am-4pm Monday to Friday and 10am-1pm on Saturday.