Roger W. Smith OBE (born 1970) is a British independent watchmaker. Smith was a Bronze Medallist of the British Horological Institute (awarded to the most outstanding graduating student of any given year).[1][2]
Biography
Born in Bolton near Manchester in 1970, Roger Smith grew up with little interest in academic pursuits, but he had a talent for the practical. On reaching the age of 16, his father suggested enrolling him in a course at the local Manchester School of Horology. Subsequently, he passed at the top of his class, winning the British Horological Institute’s Bronze medal, awarded for the highest overall mark of the year. During his time in the Institute, George Daniels was a visiting speaker, and from that moment Roger knew that he wanted to make watches by hand.
Smith became interested in making watches by hand. Using instructions from Daniels' book Watchmaking he set about making his first pocket watch in his spare time. In 1990, Roger, then aged 22, took the watch to Daniels, who told him to go back and start again because it looked ‘handmade’, not ‘created’. Not deterred by this response, Smith returned to his workshop, and spent the next five years making and remaking, his second pocket watch, until he had perfected all the thirty-two skills required to design and make a watch in "The Daniels Method".