A LIFELINE FOR TROOPS

SMITH & Nephew started in Hull, more than 160 years ago as the family enterprise of Thomas James Smith.

He opened a chemists’, supplying cod liver oil to hospitals. His nephew, Horatio Nelson Smith took over the business, renamed TJ Smith & Nephew, and expanded. By the First World War it was supplying surgical and field dressings to the armed forces of Britain, France, Belgium and Serbia.

In the 1920s it developed Elastoplast and supplied bandages again to British forces in the Second World War. Today, it is one of the UK’s top companies, with a place in the FTSE 100 index.