Time Firm turns back the clock to create a new future for Fears
Jane Duffus, the three-times great-niece of Bristolian watchmaker Edwin Fear, is the author of ‘Elegantly Understated: 175 Years of Fears Watches’. As the business re-opens its doors in the city following four decades away, Jane looks back at the impressi
VERY few companies are able to celebrate 175 years of trading, yet Fears Watches – established in Bristol in 1946 – can do just that.
Managing Director Nicholas Bowman-Scargill, who is the five times great-grandson of the business’s founder Edwin Fear, never imagined that he would have to steer the business through an unprecedented time in history just as his ancestors did when they brought the company through the two world wars and several other global crises.
“A Fears watch in 2021 represents the same values as it did in 1846, which means a Fears watch is high quality and, above all, in a truly British way it is always going to be elegantly understated,” says Nicholas.
And, this November, he is bringing the business home when he opens the grand new office, workshop and boutique at Bristol’s Paintworks.
Many Bristol Times readers will remember when Fears was operational in Bristol, and perhaps some of you even have a Fears watch or clock in your family. Even more of you will recall when Bristol Bridge was known as Fear’s Corner. But who were the people behind this timely Bristolian business?
As Fears returns home, let us introduce you to the people who built this business …
Edwin Fear
When Edwin Fear was born in 1823, there were many methods of telling the time but they often didn’t agree with one another, meaning that 9am in Edinburgh could mean something very different to 9am in Exeter. This wasn’t a wildly convenient way to live and, as such, Greenwich Mean Time was settled upon in the early 1880s as a factor for time measurement in Britain.
Edwin’s first shop was in Pill but disaster struck in early February 1846 when a fire broke out one night and destroyed everything: what a catastrophe for a fledgling business to have to survive. Consequently, 1846 would be a busy year for Edwin. In August, he married Ellen and they moved to the flat above his new shop at 33-35 Redcliff Street, now rebranded as ‘Edwin Fear, Watch & Clock Manufacturer.’ This is also where their two children were born, although Ellen tragically died aged just 24 while giving birth to baby George.
In January 1850, Edwin’s halfbrother Daniel joined him as an apprentice and, in the years immediately after, newspaper advertisements show Edwin had expanded the business to include jewellery alongside the sale of watches and clocks.
As the business grew further, in 1867 Edwin purchased No 4 Bristol
Bridge: a bigger and more prominent location. This was the area that soon became known locally as Fear’s Corner.
Later in 1850, Edwin married for a second time, this time to Martha and the couple became parents to three children including Amos, who we will come back to shortly. After Martha’s death in 1858, Edwin married for a third and final time. His new wife was Charlotte with whom he had four more children.
Aged just 49, Edwin died on 26 August 1873 and was buried at Arnos Vale, opposite Fears’ current location at Paintworks. His death posed the problem of who would take over the business. The obvious candidates were George (except he had his own business) and Daniel (except he had moved away).
So Amos was the next contender, but in 1873 Amos was only 17 and needed to be 21 before he was able to take the reins. So for a few years Fears was run by Charlotte. This was the only time that a woman was in charge of the business.
Amos Fear
When Amos turned 13 in 1869, his father took him to Paris to visit the clock factories and begin his education as a horologist. After he turned 21 in August 1877, the young man was formally appointed as the
Manager of Fears. To mark this, Fears’ staff went on a day trip to Weston-super-Mare and a wonderful photo survives showing everyone in the Victorian equivalent of smart-casual clothing as they pose on the beach.
In June 1884, Amos married Jessie at St Mary Redcliffe, and the couple had four children, including Amos Reginald who we will come back to.
By the early 1900s, Fears had built up an impressive market overseas which became so dominant that it justified a warehouse at 14-15 Brunswick Square in St Pauls. The Western Daily Press noted: “The firm employs a staff of approximately 100, mostly in the Overseas Department, and it also purchases large quantities of goods for export from factories in Bristol and district. Until the worldwide depression in trade started, the overseas trade, it is explained, was steadily increasing; in fact, the firm has its own post office on the premises at the export branch, Brunswick Square, for the despatching of parcels to overseas countries.”
Within a few years, watches were being dispatched to 95 countries.
The war years were tough for everyone and, like most businesses, Fears struggled to keep afloat. The abandonment of the gold standard in
1914 certainly exacerbated matters for a firm that used gold as a major component of many of its big-ticket items.
But after the wartime embargo on the purchase of expensive jewellery was lifted Fears identified a new market. Before the war it had been fashionable to wear a pocket watch on a chain but the war made it more practical to wear a wristwatch, which opened up a new avenue for watchmakers.
In 1927, 50 years of having Amos at the helm was celebrated with an article in The Evening News. “Asked for his impressions on the difference between conducting business today and 50 years ago, Mr Fear said that in the old days people expected the goods to last much longer than today, it being the custom to pass on watches or articles of jewellery from father to son or mother to daughter …
“Asked what he thought was the most useful time saving appliance introduced into business today, Mr Fear replied ‘Without a doubt the telephone is the greatest time saver.’ Another outstanding feature compared with the old days is the great amount of light used by retail trades, which is, of course, due to the introduction of electric lighting.”
After retiring in 1928, Amos died in July 1931 aged 76.
Reginald Fear
Known as ‘Reg,’ Amos Reginald Fear was a much-loved Bristolian businessman and community figure and he began working for Fears in 1906 after he turned 21. With his father still running the business, Reg looked after the overseas export department in Brunswick Square and, in July 1913, married Evelyn at St Mary Redcliff with whom he had two children, Diana and Alec.
When his father retired in 1928, Reg became the second Managing Director of Fears. However, polio had left Reg with a disability in his hand that put paid to his chances of
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There is something that links watchmakers with other watchmakers. People have certain things that are hardwired in them.
Nicholas Bowman-Scargill
ever being a master watchmaker. It also meant that although Reg was only 29 when World War One was declared, he was considered unfit to fight.
During Reg’s reign, Fears continued to navigate stormy waters. In September 1931, he was forced to put Fears into voluntary liquidation following the crisis caused by Britain abandoning the revised gold standard, although he promptly reformed it as a new company.
In April 1925, Winston Churchill restored the pound sterling to the gold standard at its pre-war exchange rate and this meant that British gold exports were prohibitively expensive on the global market. Given that Fears had the majority of its staff in the export department and the bulk of orders came from overseas, this was a catastrophe.
In July 1933, Reg launched a watch repair service and a scheme to train apprentices as watch mechanics. He explained that, after the war, Fears had resorted to mass producing watches as a way of keeping costs down for customers. Reg said: “A large number of the boys eventually set up in business on their own account … Many watchmakers travel all over the world, as a good mechanic can obtain employment in any country.”
As part of his efforts to keep the business alive, in May 1935 Reg transferred the whole business to Brunswick Square and tried to sell the Bristol Bridge site to free-up funds. With street frontage of almost 75 feet, the premises seemed desirable but it proved difficult to sell. However, on the night of 24 November 1940, the property was irreparably damaged by bombs.
Fears barely had time to catch its breath before two further air raids showered more bombs on Bristol, which caused damage to the warehouse at Brunswick Square and they relocated to 7 Richmond Terrace, Clifton. This was a small showroom in a row of residential properties that could be visited by appointment only: a far cry from the sizable and glamorous shops the business had previously inhabited.
Showing great stoicism, Fears celebrated its centenary in 1946 and, just ten years later, Reg marked his half-century of working for the family firm. For a number of years after Reg retired, his son Alec took over but, in the early 1960s, Reg and Alec made plans to start winding the firm down, business having been worn too thin after the war.
Following Reg’s death in December 1966, his funeral became an impromptu social gathering for all those who had known him. And a proportion of the congregation was made up of mysterious men in dark overcoats and hats: who turned out to be his ‘brothers’ at the Freemasons.
However, the sale of Fears in the mid-1960s was not the end of the business. In the process of researching ‘Elegantly Understated,’ we were pleased to meet someone who had worked as a mechanic for Fears when it was part of a larger mail-order catalogue business. As such, in the summer of 1976, Fears was based at 40 The Grove. It is thought that Fears ceased completely in the late 1970s but, because the business was out of the family at this time, it has been difficult to pinpoint exact details.
Nicholas Bowman-Scargill
After more than three decades lying dormant, Fears was re-established in November 2016 by Nicholas Bowman-Scargill, who is the sixth generation of the family to be involved with the firm. To explain how he fits into the family tree: Reg’s daughter Diana had a daughter called Claire who is Nicholas’ mother.
Born in London in 1987, after university Nicholas worked in PR
for three years before following his heart into the watchmaking business. He trained with Rolex for five years: “I learned all the different jobs involved in servicing a watch, breaking watches down, finishing parts, replacing parts, rebuilding them.” But Nicholas’ aspirations started to get the better of him and, in 2014, he began to think about what he could do next.
Claire is convinced there is a watchmaking gene in the Fear family and Nicholas thinks there may be some truth in this: “There is something that links watchmakers with other watchmakers. People have certain things that are hardwired in them.”
The London launch in 2016 was a huge success and Nicholas sold his entire predicted first years’ worth of sales in just three days. Another big surprise was the instant appeal of Fears to international customers.
Now, after six years at the helm of Fears, Nicholas says: “I would hope Edwin would be proud of the business today. I would like him to think that what we are making today is in tune with what he was making in terms of low volume, high quality and craftsmanship.”
And now that Fears has returned to Bristol, the circle is complete and ready for this treasured Bristolian institution to continue growing during the coming century.