News / Fears
Luxury watchmaker returns to Bristol after 130 years
A watch company known for its luxury timepieces is moving back to its original headquarters after 49 years away.
Today Fears Watches sells it’s “elegantly understated” pieces for anywhere between £2,000 and £23,000, however the company was dissolved in the 1970s with the advent of mass-production and consumerism.
Originally established in 1849, Fears Watches closed its doors in 1979.
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However, in 2016, Nicholas Bowman-Scargill, the great-great-great grandson of the company’s founder, re-launched the family company, and with it, the company’s presence in Bristol.
Bowman-Scargill moved the company’s headquarters back to Bristol earlier this year and is now planning to open the new manufacturing facility in the city by the end of 2022.
Fears business card from 1846 showing its premises at Redcliffe Street from 1846 – photo: Fears
Fears was opened in 1846 by a young watchmaker named Edwin Fear, with a workshop and showroom on Redcliffe Street. The business expanded to a second premises on Bristol Bridge in 1866, where its headquarters would remain until the 1940s.
After changing its name to ‘Fears Limited’ in 1908, the business became known popularly as ‘Fears’ by the 1930s, and at its height was exporting to 95 countries around the world, despite the difficult economic conditions of the 1930s.
Fears’ Brunswick Square offices and warehouse, circa 1920s – photo: Fears
The company had three premises across Bristol in total by the 1930s, after the addition of an export department in Brunswick Square.
However the Blitz of the Second World War saw all of Fears Bristol premises sustain direct hits, leading to the closure of both its headquarters and the Brunswick Square export department.
The Bristol-based traditional British leather manufacturer, Thomas Wares and Sons, located on Coronation Road, supplies Fears today – photo: Thomas Ware and Sons website
The company quickly moved to premises in Clifton, where they celebrated the centenary of Fears in 1949, before the company was dissolved in 1976.
Since reopening in 2016, Fear’s released its first wrist watch for the 21st century, the Redcliffe, and its second, the Brunswick in 2017.
Nicholas Bowman-Scargill is the fourth managing director of the company – photo: Fears
The road hasn’t been easy for Fears, however despite a challenging period over the pandemic, the company celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2021.
Bowman-Scargill also plans to rebuild the company’s archives, which were lost during the Blitz, and is appealing to the public for help.
“We’re scouring eBay for old Fears watches and photos – a lot of them are still in drawers in Bristol,” he told the BBC.
Main photo: Fears Bristol
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