Fears

Fears was founded in 1846 on Redcliff Street, Bristol, by Edwin Fear. Over more than a century as a family-run business it became the largest watchmaking manufacturer in the west of England, at its peak employing around a hundred watchmakers and producing hundreds of thousands of watches. The company passed through several generations of the Fears family before closing its doors in 1976, swept away like many mechanical brands by the quartz crisis.

In 2014 Nicholas Bowman-Scargill, a descendant of the founding family and at the time an apprentice watchmaker at Rolex, was asked by his mother over lunch the question that would change his life: why not bring the family business back? He spent two years planning, selling personal belongings — watches included — to put together a fund of about £35,000. In 2016 he launched the first Fears-branded collection in 39 years, putting the name back on a watch dial for the first time since the 1976 closure.

Initially based in Kent and later in Yorkshire, the company returned to its home city in 2021, opening premises in the Arnos Vale district and a boutique in Bristol's historic Clifton Arcade. Since then Fears has expanded its catalogue with mechanical collections finished entirely in Britain, keeping a deliberately artisanal, small-batch pace of production.