In 1798 Edward Corlett was born in Douglas. He had had an accident early in life and had a crippled leg, so manual work was out. He started at King Williams College as a barber, where a few years later he met his future wife Julia, She was born in France in 1797, and had somehow made it also to King Williams where she was a chambermaid. Love blossomed and they were married on 2nd July 1829.

Now having 2 childern & a third on the way Edward decided to branch out on his own, so in 1835 he took premises in Castletown and started a shop selling Clocks & watches. After Edward died 6th May 1879 aged 81 years, His son also Edward took over the running of the business.

On 25th June 1870 George Herbert Corlett was born, and he too followed in his fathers foot steps and was also responsible for bringing the business to Douglas around the turn of the century. In fact it is still his name that you see above the door to this day.

George was followed by his sons William & Teddy with their sisters Edith & Mary. The next generation was Williams' son Ted, who was responsible for bringing Trophies & Engraving to the business during his time in charge. Now Ted's only son Gary is at the helm. 6 Generations of Corletts, Father to son for 165 years. I don't suppose that you will find too many businesses with this sort of history about today. Gary's Daughter Ealish is at Secondary School now, and has even designed her own jewellery that had been manufactured & sold by a large UK wholesaler. Who knows maybe Ealish will be the 7th Generation of Corletts to run the business. Only time will tell.

What visions of the future would Edward have had in 1835. John Harrison had only 100 years before sorted out the Longtitude problem to shipping with the worlds first series of truly accurate clocks. In 11 years time following LeVerriers & Adams calculations the planet Neptune would be discovered. Even the Motorcar was 65 years in to the future. Then transister radios, Man on the Moon, Battery powered watches & clocks, Modern tecniques of artificially altering the colour of some gemstones and even engraving by computers.

Poor Edward would never believe what was to come. He probably would have never thought that his small shop in Castletown would be such a successful business over 165 years later. Such is the Corlett family's commitment to customer service & value for money.