S02E08: Roger W. Smith: The Apprentice Who Became the Last of a Line
Contact: [email protected] A note on the use of “British” and “Manx”.... When discussing George Daniels and Roger W. Smith, we (I) recognize the importance and pride of Manx identity and the unique culture of the Isle of Man. Both men discussed in this episode had roots in England and later made the Isle of Man their home, and both have frequently been described as Manx watchmakers. At the same time, Daniels and Smith each explicitly referred to themselves as British in interviews. Accordingly, this podcast may use both terms where appropriate, while making every effort to acknowledge their connection to the Isle of Man and to respect the Manx community and its identity. To my amazing listeners and supporters in the UK, Britain and the Isle of Man, sending love and genuine respect. I hope I did you justice as an outsider. Season 2, Episode 15 Roger W. Smith: The Apprentice Who Became the Last of a Line Description: There is a scene at the heart of this episode that tells you everything. A young man stands in a workshop on a small island in the Irish Sea, watching the most demanding watchmaker alive take apart the thing he spent five and a half years building by hand. The old man closes the watch, stands up, and says: congratulations, you are now a watchmaker. That sentence took most of Roger Smith's twenties to earn. This episode is the story of how he got there, and what he did with it after. We begin in Bolton, where a restless teenager with no interest in school discovers, through a single lecture, that he wants to do the hardest possible thing: build complete watches by hand, from raw metal, the way one man had shown it could be done. That man was George Daniels, and you cannot understand Roger Smith without first understanding him; the self-taught genius from a poor part of London who invented the co-axial escapement, spent nine years trying to get the Swiss to care, and was turned down by Patek and Rolex before Omega finally put it into production in 1999. We follow Smith from a garage in Bolton to the Isle of Man, through the years of rebuilding the same watch until it looked inevitable rather than labored, through the brutal apprenticeship, the Millennium series, and Daniels' death in 2011 — when he left Roger his workshop and every tool in it. We talk about what Smith did next: not curate a legacy, but push the co-axial escapement further than his master had taken it, and take on apprentices of his own so that a craft kept by one man does not die with that man. England once owned watchmaking. Tompion, Graham, Arnold, Harrison, Mudge — the names that built the foundation the whole world stood on. This is the story of the person quietly holding that flame and refusing to let it go out. Keywords: Roger W. Smith, Roger Smith watches, George Daniels, Daniels Method, co-axial escapement, Isle of Man watchmaker, British watchmaking, independent watchmaker, watchmaking apprentice, Daniels Millennium, GREAT Britain watch, single wheel co-axial, English horology, Thomas Mudge, lever escapement, Omega co-axial, pocket watch auction, Phillips auction, Bolton watchmaker, Manchester School of Horology, What's on Your Riste, Watchovski, watch podcast, mechanical watches, hand-finished watches, tourbillon, detent escapement, Alliance of British Watch and Clock Makers, horological heritage, watchmaking legacy, from sketch to wrist
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