News / Watchmakers
Bristol luxury watchmaker marks 180-year legacy with new HQ
A Bristol-founded watch company, which at its peak exported to some 95 countries, is marking its 180th anniversary.
The story of Fears Watches reads like a John Galsworthy novel: inspiration and perspiration; meteoric heights, fame and fortune; decline and fall; and the resurrection, all bound together by a family legacy.
Fears Watches was founded in Bristol in 1846 by the renowned watchmaker Edwin Fear. At its peak in the 1930s, the company employed some 100 watchmakers and enjoyed an unprecedented export boom, supplying timepieces to nearly 100 countries.
The business began in a workshop and showroom on Redcliffe Street before expanding to a second premises on Bristol Bridge in 1866, which served as its headquarters until the 1940s.
The business began in a workshop and showroom on Redcliffe Street before expanding to a second premises on Bristol Bridge – photo: Fears Watches
As overseas demand grew, the company added a third site in the 1930s with the opening of an export department in Brunswick Square in St Paul’s.
Fears endured two World Wars, the Great Depression and even the Bristol Blitz.
However, the Blitz delivered a devastating blow, destroying much of the company’s historic catalogues, which they are yet to fully retrace and recover.
Despite major shifts in global manufacturing, the business continued trading until the 1970s. Ultimately, a combination of factors, including a lack of desire from the fourth generation and competition from cheaper overseas alternatives, brought the curtain call to one of Bristol’s great industrial success stories.
Fears Watches was founded in Bristol in 1846 by the renowned watchmaker Edwin Fear – photo: Fears Watches
Enter Nicholas Bowman-Scargill, the great-great-great-grandson of Edwin Fear, who revived the family legacy after a 40-year dormition in 2016.
Bowman-Scargill’s revival, however, was far from a straightforward succession story.
He only fully discovered the scale of his family’s horological legacy over Sunday roast with his mum, while working for Rolex, a Damascene moment that would ultimately lead him to Bristol to reclaim the brand.
Speaking to Bristol24/7, Bowman-Scargill recounted his career journey from aspiring investment banker to watchmaker via Rolex.
He said: “When I started training as a watchmaker at Rolex, my mum casually mentioned that my great-grandfather and his father had been watchmakers in Bristol. That was it. No context.
“I imagined a dusty little workshop, someone tinkering with clocks.
“It wasn’t until years later — sitting around the table at my parents’ house — that my mum jokingly said, “Why don’t you restart the family watch company?” Then she brought out an old photo album.
“Inside were adverts for Fears Watches. Suddenly I realised my family hadn’t just been watchmakers — they’d been running the largest watch company in the West of England. At its peak, Fears employed around 100 watchmakers in Bristol.
“That was the moment everything clicked. I realised my legacy didn’t have to be something new — it could be about bringing something back and taking it forward.”
As overseas demand grew, the company added a third site in the 1930s with the opening of an export department in Brunswick Square in St Paul’s – photo: Fears
What began with a team of just three staff eventually put down roots at Paintworks, which became the company’s headquarters.
Coincidentally, the first two directors of Fears Watches are buried nearby at Arnos Vale Cemetery, with Bowman-Scargill now carrying the mantle as the firm’s fourth managing director.
However, he is keen to stress that the revival is not driven by rose-tinted nostalgia.
Instead, Fears operates as a business that continually learns, relearns, grows and evolves in line with changing financial and manufacturing realities, a mindset that explains the decision not to return to its former workshops or showrooms.
Then came a major obstacle: the global pandemic.
Trading dried up almost overnight, not just for Fears but across the luxury goods sector, where the overriding priority was “staying alive”.
After paying suppliers, a candid conversation with his accountant revealed that there was only enough funds left to cover overheads and the wages of two members of staff for two months. When Bowman-Scargill asked what would happen if he were to take a 100 per cent pay cut, he was told this would extend the runway to just two and a half months.
A vintage timepiece by Fears on display at their headquarters in Paintworks – photo: Milan Perera
That reality led him to take an unconventional step. Living in Kent at the time with his partner, he handed his CV to several major supermarkets, telling recruitment units not to “reverse discriminate” against him because of his background as a company director.
The salary, he reasoned, could help keep two Fears employees in work, particularly as the company did not receive furlough support.
For three months, Bowman-Scargill worked gruelling eight-hour night shifts picking orders at an ASDA branch, an experience he describes as unforgiving but ultimately galvanising and reinforcing his determination to keep the company ship afloat until fairer winds returned.
In a twist he describes as a blessing in disguise, the pandemic also reshaped consumer behaviour.
With travel, socialising, gigs and pub visits off the table, many people found themselves with more disposable income. As restrictions eased, Bowman-Scargill says, this pent-up demand fuelled what he describes as “revenge spending” on luxury items.
“We now have 12 people here. But that success isn’t because of me — it’s because of the team,” said Nicholas Bowman-Scargill – photo: Fears Watches
He said: “By 2020 and 2021, we’d grown well and had the money and the people to do it. So in June 2021, in between lockdowns, I came down to Bristol specifically to look at offices.
“When I saw this space at Paintworks, I fell in love with it — the brickwork, the character. This building dates back to the 1850s, only a few years younger than Fears itself, and that felt important.”
Today, the company employs a team of 12. Bowman-Scargill is quick to credit them for the business’s recent success and sees his own role as temporary, something to be passed on when the time comes.
“When I talk about legacy, this is what I mean,” he said. “Yes, I own Fears, and yes, it’s my family’s name — but history exists because of generations of people before me.
“I’m the fourth managing director, but there will be a fifth and a sixth. My role is temporary. It’s about what’s right for the business, not what’s right for me.
“A lot of business owners ask, ‘What can I get out of this?’ My question is the opposite: ‘What can the business get out of me?’”
Bowman-Scargill at the new headquarters of Fears Watches in Paintworks, which is currently under construction – photo: Milan Perera
He also singled out the team behind the brand’s growth. “Last year, the company grew by nearly 50 per cent. We now have 12 people here. But that success isn’t because of me — it’s because of the team.”
Fears is now preparing to move into a new headquarters, currently under construction and due to open in late January.
The transition is expected to be seamless, with the new site located just a few yards from its existing headquarters at Paintworks.
The watchmaker expanded its presence in the city by opening its first boutique in Clifton Arcade in 2024 with an “open door” policy for patrons to just walk through with no prior appointments.
Bowman-Scargill remains pragmatic about the company’s future, emphasising the importance of being rooted in Bristol, not as an exercise in looking backwards, but as a foundation for what comes next.
“Being in Bristol matters deeply,” he said.
“I often think about the previous managing directors walking down King Street for a pint, sitting in the same pubs.
“We’re not trying to recreate the past. We’re building a modern business, creating new heritage” – photo: Fears Watches
“That history is why the company belongs here — but we’re not trying to recreate the past. We’re building a modern business, creating new heritage.”
Main photo: Fears Watches
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