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Smiths

United Kingdom · Founded 1851

Smiths originated as S Smith & Sons, a London jewellery and precision-instrument business founded by Samuel Smith in 1851, later a major supplier of clocks and instruments to the Admiralty and, through the 20th century, to British industry (notably automotive instrumentation) and the military. In 1946 Smiths partnered with Ingersoll to form Anglo-Celtic Watch Co. Ltd. in Wales, which at its peak was one of the largest watch producers in Europe (up to roughly 1,420 workers). A Smiths 'De Luxe' wristwatch was worn by Sir Edmund Hillary during the first ascent of Everest in 1953 -- by most accounts the only watch worn to the summit that day (Rolex also supplied watches to the expedition but was not the summit watch). Smiths also produced a small prototype run of Air Ministry-spec (6B/159) pilots' watches in WWII and an 'Antarctic' (A454) reference worn on the 1955-58 Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. As UK demand for clocks, watches and automotive instruments declined through the 1970s, Anglo-Celtic Watch Co. closed in 1980, ending in-house Smiths watch manufacturing; Smiths Group PLC continues today as an unrelated industrial/aerospace/detection-technology conglomerate with no current watch business. The Smiths watch trademark was later licensed to Timefactors, a British watch retailer, which relaunched Smiths as a watch brand (flagship 'Everest' model from 2011) producing new watches -- using Japanese (Miyota) and Swiss (ETA) movements -- that reference the historic military and expedition pieces without being a continuation of the original manufacturing operation. Status is set to 'active' to reflect the brand as currently sold and marketed under this license; the original vertically-integrated Smiths watch manufacturing business itself ceased operating in 1980.