North of the border
Now, I am going to stray north of England’s border to Scotland, and to that fine country’s leading watch retailer for a set of words which seem to me to summarize very well the scene I have introduced. Malcolm Gillan is the sales director of Hamilton & Inches in Edinburgh, and he offers this set of comments:
“Our watch business is currently very strong with demand in all areas; the surge of interest over Christmas has carried over into the spring. All our watch brands are quite exclusive, and this has helped to maintain our consistent sales pattern. Our best sellers, in terms of volume, over the festive season were Rolex, but, when volume and value are combined, Patek Philippe was the leader. Panerai has seen steady growth and seems now to have established itself fully as a market force rather than just being a ‘fad’ brand. The most successful new addition to our range has been A.Lange & Söhne, which has immediately sold well with extra high value sales.
“Going forward, in general terms of metals, white gold and platinum are still the most popular, and larger case sizes continue to be strong. There is perhaps a very small undercurrent among younger and sophisticated customers who are looking for slim, plain, monotone wristwatches, and it will be interesting to see if this trend continues to develop. The less fussy complications are also stronger, with chronographs being favoured with two subsidiary dials rather than three.”

South of the border
Down south, in London, other independent watch retailers are also enjoying their trading patterns. The Watch Galley (which has just been bought by Neil Duckworth, late of Duval and LVMH) on fashionable Fulham Road, long-time manager David Smith reports demand for Audermars Piguet’s Equation of Time and the Offshore range, along with constant interest in pilot’s timepieces from IWC, Panerai and Breitling. The Watch Gallery has just taken on the futuristic Ventura brand.
Further along Fulham Road Theo Fennell’s emporium resides, at a prominent location, much favoured by high society, visiting film stars, and cash-loaded top footballers. Theo has teamed up with one of England’s best-kept secrets, a real English watchmaker. He is called Roger Smith, and is just 32. He has a workshop on the Isle of Man, where his great supporter George Daniels lives, and where also lived John Harwood, who invented the automatic movement (Perrelet, we know about you too!). Theo Fennell has commissioned from Roger Smith three handmade retrograde wristwatches. Their engine turned dials display the hours and minutes with gold batons, small seconds dial at 6 o’clock and a calendar mechanism. Each in a different 18 carat gold, they are priced up to £19,500. Fennell has also just taken on Jacob & Co., with its distinctive multicoloured dials.
William & Son (managing director William Asprey), in Mayfair, says his well-heeled clients are being seduced by the British Masters range (and particularly the Arnold & Son Longitude, and the Chronofighter), F.-P.Journe’s Octa Divine piece, in the diamond set version at about £26,000, and by models by the newcomer Voltime.

Radford Templar, fecit in Beckenham
Staying with the subject of independence in watchmaking, there is another good story to be told of late. It is a well-known fact that here in England, well, Great Britain actually, we do not have a single series wristwatch manufacturer. We just have no will for the business. We have never ceased, on the other hand, to produce endless innovations in the closely related micro-engineering business, and so both are strange facts. The time of the day is common to us all, but the British have no interest in making money out of it. Until very recently, that is.
Living south of London, in Beckenham, Kent, is an Indian gentleman with a remarkable story to tell, indeed demonstrate. He makes watches, and each of them is unique. His name is Paul Suchet.
His story begins in Allahabad, which means ‘town of God’ and stands at the confluence of the rivers Ganges and Jumna. At this place it is the aim of all Hindus to bathe at least once in their lifetimes. Paul’s father was a printer, but they did not get on too well. So a very young Paul Suchet, born in 1943, travelled to England, a mecca for an admirer of the Raj era, with £50 in his pocket, in order to sit his ‘A’ Level exams. He then entered the Leeds School of Printing in Yorkshire, and later progressed into the world of high finance. This entailed a long period with the Department of Trade and Industry, where he was one of the government’s high fliers, and for which he travelled the world. Today, at 60, he has been married to his English wife for 32 years, has two daughters, and is still in finance.
Now the watchmaking story begins! Just over two years ago Paul Suchet visited the shop of William & Son in London’s Mount Street. There he inspected a wristwatch with the dial name ‘Graham’, of which he knew little. William Asprey was able to tell him that this was a brand of British Masters. This led him to believe that there was a British watch industry, but he was soon disillusioned. From his world-wide travels Paul Suchet was well aware of universal outsourcing, but, to his surprise, he began to feel very strongly that a historically famous name like Graham, along with Tompion and Arnold (the three names in the British Masters fold), based and made in Switzerland, should really originate in England.
He was discussing this with a goldsmith friend, and an idea evolved which has today become a reality. Now, although in his spare time, Paul Suchet is importing Valjoux 7750 movements from ETA in Switzerland, and then his work begins. Paul has assembled a freelance team of craftsmen to take the raw movements and turn them into Radford Templar watches. Each and every one is unique… limited editions of one. Rotors are removed and replaced with engraved ones made in platinum. The dials can be engine-turned and he has two enamellers, expert in cloisonné and champlevé. He also has a dial printer, which is over a hundred years old. All his cases are handmade, in any shape demanded by his customers. The back plates can be engraved with a portrait or anything else required, alongside his trademark lion with a raised paw. Any metal can be inlaid to any design.
Radford Templar timepieces come in three sizes: 30 mm, which Paul Suchet considers suitable for ladies, and is available only in automatic versions, and 41 mm and 44 mm, which can be chronographs if required. Prices start at £15,000, and the boxed watches come with a small booklet listing the initials of his craftsmen: the case-maker, the dial-maker, the dial-printer, the engraver, the chaser, the inlayer, the enameller, and the assembler. His watchstraps are also made to order in a choice of ostrich knee, crocodile, snakeskin, beaver, sharkskin, water buffalo, or stingray.
I asked Paul Suchet how the name of his watch brand evolved. As a young man he had met in Leeds an Oxford graduate smartly dressed as an English gentleman. His name was Hugh de Crecy Tempest Radford, a name that Suchet could scarcely believe and never forgot. Seeking a name for his brand he found that ‘Tempest’ was already in use, and he did not wish to use Hugh’s own name. He says his mind went back to the time of Richard the Lionheart and the Knights Templar, and his final brand name materialised. Radford Templar wristwatches are with us, and virtually ‘Made in England’.