From Ironmongery to Heavy Metal

FROM THE HUMBLE CORNER SHOP….

A Story of Customer Service and Family Values

Words: Phil Moon Photographs: Watts Truck & Van

One hundred and fifty years ago, a general store was established in the town of Lydney in the Wye Valley by Elizabeth Watts. Today John Thurston, Chairman of Watts of Lydney and fifth generation descendent of Elizabeth and David Watts, recounts how his forbears forged a family business that would play a key role in the evolution of motor vehicle engineering, from its beginnings in the late nineteenth century, right through to today. Today the Watts Group of Lydney is a multifaceted business with divisions that include Watts Urethane and Plysolene - businesses which specialise in modern polymer technologies, an area of specialisation that the company can trace back to a half-century of industrial tyre production and tyre re-treading, and Althorpe Properties, which has a portfolio of industrial and retail premises that reflects the influence the Watts family has had on the industrial landscape and economics in Lydney and further afield. At the heart of the Group is Watts Truck and Van which has three dealerships, located in Cardiff, Newport and Swansea, that are dedicated to taking care of DAF customers. Alongside awards and recognition inside the DAF Dealer Network, Watts Truck & Van won the coveted Franchised Dealer of the Year award at the Commercial Motor

Awards in 2020, in recognition of the outstanding levels of customer care and support they deliver.

Watts Family Heritage

The Watts Group story began just over 150 years ago when David Lazarus Watts, a widowed carpenter, arrived in Lydney, Gloucestershire and married Elizabeth Stephens, a local girl. Together they set up a general store and bakery. Their middle child, Josiah Stephens Watts, was apprenticed to an ironmonger in Bristol where he met his future wife, Clara Esther Weaver. In 1880, at the age of 24, Josiah borrowed £300 from his uncle and purchased a small ironmongery shop back in his hometown of Lydney.

The Early Years Of Motoring

In the early days of the internal combustion engine, no garages and few suitable workshops existed and, as a rural ironmonger who also traded in cycles and motorcycles, the J. S. Watts Ironmongery shop and its workshed, would play an important role in the development of motor transport supporting those early motorists. In 1905 and 1907 respectively, Josiah and Clara’s sons, Arthur and John, joined the family business which would later become J.S. Watts and Son and be described as ‘Ironmongers and Motor Dealers’. The business established a successful mail delivery service for the surrounding Forest of Dean area and by 1912, they held the agency to sell Ford motor cars in Chepstow and the Forest of Dean up to Westbury on Severn. After both serving in the First World War, John and Arthur resumed their business activities with a renewed vigour. During 1919-1920, Watts built Lydney’s first purpose-built motor garage on the High Street and so, with its opening in 1920, Watts Garages Limited was born. In 1920 Arthur travelled to Salonika in Greece, to Arras in France and to Cologne in Germany, where he purchased about 200 War Department surplus heavy vehicles. These were mainly Albions, along with some Leylands and some Peerless, together with mobile workshops and tons of spares. Over the coming years, they were converted or repaired in an aircraft hangar that had been dismantled on Salisbury Plane and re-erected in a field near Lydney. Most were sold around the country to a variety of operators including breweries, oil companies, dairies and general hauliers. Others were used as bus chassis for new services, started by John, linking the Forest of Dean and Gloucester.

Developments & Diversification

Over the decades the Watts businesses have been many and varied. From the Watts boiler to the Watts Tyre & Rubber Company. John Watts was heavily

The first Watts garage in High Street, Lydney, built 1919-20

Watts Boilers were produced and sold for many years. War Department surplus vehicles were sold to a variety of customers

Ex-army AEC Matator recovery vehicle

involved with passenger transport and he and Arthur, together with colleagues, established the United Transport Company Limited which was involved in goods transport here, and goods and passenger transport overseas. The supply and re-treading of tyres became a major part of the business after World War II and led to the development of a separate industrial tyre business, which would be one of the largest in the world. Watts Industrial Tyres was sold in 2009 allowing the Group to concentrate on its other successful businesses, without the risks associated with complex international tyre markets.

Diesel In The Veins

The company was heavily involved in the early development of the diesel engine and Arthur Watts was a keen proponent of the technology, recognising its efficiency advantages over petrol. In 1928 he fitted some L2 Gardner marine diesel engines into ex-W.D. Leyland trucks, allowing for the greater torque and lower rpm by changing the solid tyres to pneumatics of larger diameter. As early as 1937 he put a diesel engine into his car, which he used successfully for about 12 years. Arthur’s innovations with diesel engines would eventually lead him to pass on the rights to his work to Albion Motors. During the 1920s Watts were appointed as Albion distributors for South Wales, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire. Later they would become agents for Leyland, Scammell, ERF and Gardner diesel engines. The association with Albion and Leyland has continued as the brands were absorbed and morphed, first into the Leyland Vehicles empire, then into Leyland DAF and finally into today’s DAF Dealership. This must make Watts one of the longest established commercial vehicle dealers in the UK. John Thurston is the current Chairman of the Watts Group of Companies and is the great-great-grandson of David and Elizabeth Watts. Reflecting on the company’s heritage and his family history that is so closely entwined, ‘I’ve always been aware that Watts is a family business and I later came to understand how family businesses have a different culture to many others.’ This is of course something that many family transport companies will recognise and appreciate. ‘It’s all about how we treat our people, our communities, our suppliers, our staff and our customers.’ ‘To be chairman of a business founded by your forefathers over 150 years ago is a rare privilege. It was by their example, energy, vision, that foundations for the present and future were laid.’ It is certainly an interesting story of drive, innovation and customer service that continues to this day.

Simon Griffin (front right) receives DAF Dealer of the Year Award in 2019.

Watch John Thurston, Chairman of Watts of Lydney Group as he talks about the history of the company.