Imperial ELE electric typewriter, about 1965

Imperial ELE electric typewriter with 170 character width platen, serial number ELE 1397, c. 1965

The ELE was the only electric typewriter made by British company Imperial Typewriter Company, a longstanding manufacturer of manual typewriters from 1911 until the 1970s - when the company was taken over by US electronics giant Litton Industries.

The Imperial Typewriter Company was a British manufacturer of typewriters based in Leicester, England and established by Hidalgo Moya, an American-Spanish engineer who lived in England, in 1911. In 1954, the company expanded and opened up a second factory in Hull.

In the late 1960s, the Imperial Typewriter Company succumbed to cheaper overseas production costs and began to import machines from Japan. In the 1970s, Imperial was taken over by US electronics giant Litton Industries, which also swallowed up Royal Typewriters, and after a brief revival under the brand name Imperial Business Equipment, the Imperial name disappeared completely in the 1980s.