About Colin Andrews &
Great British Watch Company

I am Colin Andrews, a watchmaker with a keen interest in encouraging people within the industry and helping to promote Britain’s pivotal role in watchmaking history; and hopefully being part of its revival.

At the moment I am busy working on creating a series of watches for sale, including “The Few”; a watch handmade from a WW2 Spitfire.

Previously I spent 7 years hand-making my own watch as well as training 5 of my own apprentices to become watchmakers.

In recognition of my efforts I was made a Fellow of the British Horological Institute in 2019. I have studied both the WOSTEP and BHI qualifications, and have attained 1st place worldwide in my exams in subjects including Technical Drawing, Practical Making of Components as well as earning the 1st place results for both the Diploma in Clock and Watch Servicing and the Diploma in the Servicing and Repair of Watches.

I was a relatively late starter into the industry, having previously spent 8 years in China, mostly running my own fine art business and having learned fluent Mandarin Chinese. I returned to Britain at the end of 2010 and I decided to embark a new specialised career path. After some thinking I chose Watchmaking.

Watchmaking seemed like a romantic choice of career. It was a real skill, and felt like a proper job. It also seemed that the British watchmaking industry was suffering, and this appealed to me as it was something that I could get my teeth into.

The experience so far has inspired me to continue on my personal journey within watchmaking, as my career is flourishing and I am able to use my position both at work and on-line to help inspire some of tomorrow’s watchmakers to follow along the same path.

If you’re interested in linking up, you can connect on Linked In. Here’s the link

After I had founded the company, I stumbled upon the similarly named British Watch and Clockmaker’s Company of 1842-5. This was a venture founded with the same aims by Thomas Earnshaw Jnr. and John Barwise, two of the most respected watchmakers of their day, along with industrialist Pierre Frederic Ingold. Their aim was to mass produce 300 standardised watches a day whose parts would be completely interchangeable and replaceable, created through the use of ingenious machines.

Unfortunately, they terrified the established British watchmakers who feared they would be put out of work by machinery, and the company was successfully challenged in parliament and soon ran out of money. You can read the fascinating story of the House of Commons Debate here.

Some 170 years after the British Watch and Clockmakers Company’s founding, I aim to build the Great British Watch Company in its spirit, with the aim of fulfilling Mr Earnshaw, Barwise and Ingold’s vision.

After building up the necessary skills and experience within the watchmaking industry, having completed my first hand-made branded watch, and having built the largest independent watchmaker apprenticeship programme in the UK, in December 2019 I started working full-time on my making my own watches for sale to the public. You can read about one of the first of the series here.