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Right On Time They make timepieces that capture the spirit of the past and hope to re-establish the British watchmaking tradition. Giles English, co-founder of Bremont watches, tells Gavin Nazareth how it all began 136 – Prestige – january 2013
Everyone loves a good tale and watchmaker brothers Nick and Giles English have a good one to tell. It all started with their father Euan’s passion for all things mechanical. A champion RAF aerobatics pilot with a PhD in aeronautical engineering from Cambridge, he spent his life in the air, or in his workshop building planes, tinkering with clocks, watches and engines.
“My father was this amazing, very handson engineer. As kids we spent a lot of time in the workshop. He had a passion for old cars, aircraft and clocks. He used to get us to put together old clocks and though we never got them working, it was a lot of fun. So that’s where the watch/clock passion came from,” says Giles, co-founder of Bremont, an award-winning British brand that produces beautifully engineered chronometers. The three also restored old cars and vintage planes that they flew, and even built a boat that they sailed around the Mediterranean for six months. Life was an adventure until tragedy struck in March 1995. Euan was out on a training flight for an upcoming air show in their World War II Havard plane with Nick as co-pilot. During the flight, the engine failed and the plane hit a field near Maldon in Essex. Giles recalls that fateful day: “My father died and amazingly my brother survived that crash, breaking 25 bones in the process. An air ambulance carrying an anaesthetist and trauma surgeon happened to be flying overhead and took him to hospital very quickly.” “Nick survived and it was the tipping point in life that makes you go and do slightly silly things. It was very much a time for us to live life and do something he wanted to do.” And this is truly where the tale of the Bremont brand begins. The brothers both quit their city jobs in corporate finance, starting their own plane restoration business and a digital music company that offered record companies a way of sending music files around securely. But the dream of honouring their father’s passion for mechanical timepieces was always at the back of their minds. That Britain was home to half the world’s watch manufacturing is now a little known fact. Names like Tompion, Earnshaw, Graham, Mudge and Hamilton dominated the horological universe at one time. Even Rolex was set up there in 1905 before moving to Switzerland. Eager to be part of this once proud tradition and create a watch brand with a very British aesthetic, but at the same time acknowledging that they needed the current experience of the Swiss, the brothers sold their business and set up shop in Bern, Switzerland. Says Giles, who also trained as an engineer, “We spent five years building watches, and not selling a single one; we just
had this watch shop. But we put together a brilliant team with Peter Roberts as the technical director, who was with Rolex for 30 years and before that, IWC. A part of what we were trying to do was create a watch that was very classic in style, but very much one you could wear in the boardroom or take up Mount Everest.” And how the brand got its name is another great tale. Putting the name ‘English’ on their watches was not an option as it would have been hard to trademark, says Giles with a smile. “All our original watches didn’t have a name on them. We could have bought an old English brand, Harrison or Mudge and got the trademark. That’s what so many Swiss watch companies you hear of now do, 10 years ago they weren’t around. They get a trademark to a name and say they have been trading since 1723, but for 300 years they weren’t doing anything. That historically is how it’s done. But we realised if we did that, we’d have to live in the sub-DNA of a Harrison or whatever and we wanted to be ourselves.” Flying their old biplane over France during a heavy storm, they were forced to make an emergency landing in a pea field. French law dictates that any plane landing in an unauthorised airfield be impounded, the wings taken off and then moved to a more suitable place for take off. Once again Lady Luck was with the brothers and the kindly farmer, an ex-war pilot, offered them a bed and his barn to hide the plane from the police. Like their father, the man turned out to be an engineer and a pilot with a passion for planes, clocks and motorcycles. His name was Antoine Bremont. Built to exacting specifications, the Bremont family of chronometer tested chronographs, non-chronograph watches and special limited edition models are sufficiently accurate and durable to be used for activities ranging from flying to polar and deep-sea exploration. Some, like the MB I & II, undergo rigorous testing by the Britishbased ejector-seat manufacturer MartinBaker, whose test lab shakes the watches vigorously for three days, replicating 40 years of vibrations. Endorsements have also rolled in from stuntman Gary Connery, actoradventurer Charley Boorman, polar explorer Ben Saunders, professional mountaineer Jake Meyer, champion freediver Sara Campbell, adventurer, writer and television presenter Bear Grylls, as well as Hollywood
stars Tom Cruise and Orlando Bloom. In addition, the company works with multiple military squadrons both in the UK and the USA, including the U-2 Spy Plane Squadron, who are seeking an understated, exclusive and refined timepiece. “Only 4,000 watches are manufactured each year and all adhere to the core values of precision, durability and individuality,” says Giles proudly; a pride rooted in the slew of awards that now line the office walls, including “Luxury Watch Brand of the Year” at the 2012 UK Jewellery Awards, and the “People’s Choice” at the Couture 2012 Watch & Jewellery Show in Las Vegas. A number of Jaguar car models sport a custom-made Bremont clock on the dashboard, and Rolling Stone guitarist turned artist Ronnie Wood hand-painted a series of Bremont clock faces, while limited editions have been made for Norton motorcycles and from the metal of rare Second World War planes. But their latest special edition is a tribute to HMS Victory, the only remaining 18th Century ship anywhere in the world and the oldest serving warship still to be in commission. Launched in 1765, she is most famous as Lord Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. In 1922 she was moved to a dry dock at Portsmouth, England, and preserved as a museum ship. In 2010 a major refit was commissioned to preserve her for future generations and to commemorate Nelson and the ship, Bremont has produced a unique watch that includes parts of the oak timber and copper from the original ship. A part of the revenue from each watch will go towards the refurbishment and preservation of the ship. “Nelson went to my school and as a boy he always fascinated me. Over the past few years, both Nick and myself have been working with the Royal Navy Fleet air arm ‘Heritage’ and that’s how we heard about the restoration of HMS Victory. We approached the Navy and discussed the possibility of creating a watch using original parts from the ship. Not only did we want to make the watch unique, but we also wanted it to be a horological masterpiece,” explains Giles. Thailand has been allotted only two of the special edition timepieces, and watch aficionados can put their names down at any Pendulum store.
january 2013 – Prestige – 137