Roger W. Smith – British Collection

Roger W. Smith presents the first British range of watches

Roger W. Smith is the only maker of entirely British watches and movements, wholly manufactured in his workshop, based in the Isle of Man.

“It is almost the fifteenth anniversary of the first production wrist watches issued by the Roger W. Smith Studio in 2001; namely the Series 1. Since then, having first developed and then stayed true to our ethos of hand-crafting all components within our studio, we have produced just 80 pieces”, explains Roger Smith.

One of Roger’s key steps in those years is, in 2010, the development of a single-wheel version of George Daniels’ (his master and mentor until his death, in 2011) co-axial escapement. This improvement enabled more accurate escapements which ultimately led to some slight improvements in actual timekeeping. To house his latest escapement Roger Smith decided to design a completely new mechanism, and to review his Unique Pieces designs in order to create a new range of watches.

The resulting Series 1, 2, 3 and 4 watches represent, for Roger Smith, something of a renaissance in his approach to watchmaking. They also enshrine the watches he has produced to date as uniquely important stepping stones towards this new era.

The Roger W. Smith Range

The uniquely British provenance of Roger’s in-house movements remains the true heart of his hand-crafted watches and the principle evolution of his approach.

Series 1

The new Series 1 is a manually wound wristwatch displaying hours, minutes and seconds. The movement is housed in a 40mm diameter case.

Series 2

The Series 2 is an evolution of the model which has been perfected over the last ten years since its original release, 40mm cased, manually wound wristwatch displaying hours, minutes, seconds and power reserve dial.

Series 3

The Series 3 is a manually wound wristwatch displaying hours, minutes, seconds and a retrograde date complication. And has a 40mm diameter case.

Series 4

With George Daniels’ words “you must always create clear legible dials” echoing in his ears, Roger Smith created the Series 4, an instantaneous triple-calendar wristwatch with a split dial and “travelling date aperture”. To accommodate this complication, the Series 4 is a slightly larger 41mm cased. The manually wound wristwatch displays hours, minutes, seconds with date, day, month and phase-of-moon complications.