Explore Smiths

Smiths belongs to a distinctly British watchmaking story: practical wristwatches from a company whose interests stretched far beyond the wrist. Founded in 1851, it eventually made watches in Cheltenham, with domestically produced movements beneath restrained dials. Surviving De Luxe models capture that character particularly well, often pairing Arabic numerals with small seconds and modest cases.

The mountain connection is real. Edmund Hillary carried a Smiths during the successful Everest ascent in 1953, giving the name an enduring association with expedition watches. Military pieces tell another side of the story: the W10 supplied to the British Army combined a black dial, luminous markings and a broad-arrow signature in a straightforward, highly readable layout.

Today's Smiths watches come from Timefactors, rather than a continuation of the original manufacturer. The Everest PRS-25 is the familiar modern reference, with its three-six-nine dial, steel case and automatic movement. The PRS-29 takes a more explicitly military route, revisiting the spare dial arrangement and hand-wound format of those earlier service watches.