'The Golden Years' - S Smith & Sons Ltd
'The Golden Years' - S Smith & Sons Ltd
A brief history of Smiths Industries, Kelvin & Hughes and their
other subsidiaries
Samuel Smith (senior) began his business in 1851 in Newington
Causeway, South London as a jeweller, diamond merchant, watch and
clock retailer. With his son, also Samuel, now joining him they
opened further shops near Charing Cross. Their time-pieces and
Kew-rated chronometers were made for them using high-grade English
(Nicole, Nielsen & Co) or Swiss movements.
With the advent of the motor-car, Smiths produced their first
speedometer in 1904, made in association with Robert North of
Nicole, Nielsen and soon expanded into marketing motor accessories
and the fledgling aviation instruments, opening a new factory in
Great Portland Street as S Smith & Sons (Motor Accessories)
Ltd, followed by a new works at Cricklewood to meet growing demand
for the war effort.
The 1920s saw major changes in Smith's fortunes with several
exclusive marketing agreements such as KLG spark plugs and Henry
Hughes & Son Ltd (aircraft navigation instruments) leading to
their take-over. In motoring, they gained Jaeger's British
chronometric speedometer interests and soon branched out into
motor-car clocks, lighting systems, radiator thermostats and the
in-built 'Jackall' hydraulic car-jack systems. In aviation, their
new Desynn electrically controlled instruments and Hughes'
navigation interests led to the first British auto-pilot, much used
by Imperial Airways and RAF Bomber Command.
Their jewellery and watch retail side had remained firmly in the
family's private hands until 1929, but no sooner had it been sold,
than did the company expand into synchronous electric mantel and
motor-car clocks, but it was not until the late-1930s, with war
looming and the government eager to establish British manufacture
of soon to be unobtainable escapements, primarily for aircraft
instruments, that Smiths established their new Cheltenham plant and
British Precision Springs Ltd. From here they produced their very
own pocket- and stop-watches for the war effort. After the war,
Cheltenham concentrated on aviation and avionics, but while still
producing Smiths' own high-grade wrist-watches intended for the
war-time RAF, a new joint Smiths-Ingersoll plant was established
with government assistance to rebuild a British horological
industry. Their new Ystradgynlais works produced a range of budget,
low-jewel, Ingersoll and Smiths 'Empire' watches and clocks.
Regarded the equal of high-grade Swiss watches, Smiths' 'Astral'
time-piece business increasingly became of lesser importance to
avionics (auto-pilots, auto-landing, flying and fuel control
systems) and after a final military contract in 1970, high grade
watch production came to end. Budget clocks and watches however
continued until 1978, but increasingly using imported movements and
cases.
S Smith & Son Ltd had become Smiths Industries in 1966 to
better reflect their diverse interests: Aviation, Motoring, Marine
(primarily Kelvin & Hughes' marine radar and echo-sounders) and
Industrial (instruments, production controls, time-controls,
ultrasonics). But even their mainstay motor accessories business
(jacks, car heaters, instruments and 'Radiomobile' car-radios)
struggled to survive the rapid decline of the British motor
industry in the 1970s causing Smiths to withdraw from the motor
industry in 1984 by merging those activities with Lucas, allowing
Smiths to concentrate on their avionics, defence and medical
(primarily Portex) interests. By now America had become Smiths'
primary profit-centre and base for expansion; they took over
Lear-Siegler in 1987 and secured further aviation instrument
contracts with Boeing.
Specialist companies from all industries were bought at a
mind-boggling pace and then in 2000, Smiths Industries and Tube
Investments (a major British metal tubes to Dowty hydraulics group)
merged to form the global Smiths Group, now primarily
avionics/defence, medical and industrial seals. They systematically
sold off their non-core automotive, industrial air-movement and
hydraulics businesses and finally, in 2007, their aviation and
marine interests to become today's global medical, detection and
connectors group.
Quite obviously there is a lot more to Smiths than that brief
introduction! This affordable work does more than just scratch the
surface of this fascinating enterprise with its fully illustrated,
210+ pages, covering the history and development of their many
operations, subsidiaries and production sites - but there is still
so much more to record for posterity. The author worked for Smiths
in the 1970s; his research has involved searching interviews with
former staff, some of whom were there in the 1930s, as well as
archival and contemporary records.
"S Smith & Sons Ltd - The Golden Years"
New 2nd edition is now through popular request in 2 parts;
Part One timepieces 150pp
Part Two motoring, aviation, industrial, medical and Kelvin
& Hughes 180pp
200+ black and white illustrations A4 soft-back (c) 2013, 2nd edition 2017
"Amazed at the detail you have about Smiths - 95% new to me" HH
(long serving retiree)
"Great book, as a watch collector it answers so many questions, many thanks!"... TJ
"... the attention to detail is particularly remarkable". CJ
NMM
Apologies for the odd colour cast during scanning; they are both a uniform cream!