PAST IMPERFECT:'Smiths' clocks and dials were almost a permanent fixture in most British-made cars until the 1980s
SMITH, SMITH and Son Limited had its beginnings in a clock, watch and jewellery shop at Newington Causeway in south London's Elephant and Castle district, in mid-Victorian times. By the start of the 20th century the company had graduated to larger premises at The Strand in London, where Allan Gordon Smith, a third generation member of the company, developed the first British Speedometer which he got fitted to the King's Mercedes Daimler in 1904.
Seeing a future in "speedometers" as it named its new instrument, Smiths appointed a commercial traveller to sell speedometers, clocks and other motoring accessories around the country. In 1907 Smiths received a royal warrant for its speedometers and by the end of that year sales had reached a new high point of 100 a week.
By 1910 Smiths had become original equipment on nearly all British manufactured vehicles, and a rapidly increasing number of the 800,000 motor vehicles on British roads were fitted with Smith's "Perfect Speedometers". In 1913, Speedometer House was built at Great Portland Street, London, where the top two floors were devoted to the production of speedometers, gauges and other instruments, while the basement was given over to the production of carburettors.
In 1914, Smiths became a public company and began "large-scale manufacture of its newest product, the Smiths self-starter". In 1919, Smiths became sole selling agent for KLG Spark Plugs and in the same year introduced its Automatic Radiator Shutter.
By 1920, Smiths Motor Accessories had a weekly production of 3,000 speedometers, 2,000 motor clocks, 1,000 gauges, 2,000 carburettors, 2,000 mechanical horns and 2,000 dynamo lighting sets, and some 50 British car manufacturers were fitting Smith's equipment as original equipment to their vehicles. Even more rapid expansion followed and new factories were built at Cricklewood while their main rival, Jaeger, was incorporated into Smiths in 1926, the same year they acquired KLG.
Despite the onset of the depression at the end of the 1920s, Smiths production continued to grow as the company brought more innovative products to the market: Bluecol Antifreeze, the Jackall four-wheel built-in hydraulic jacking system, Smith's Silent Mechanical Windscreen Wiper (which operated by a flexible shaft running from a small gearbox inserted into the speedometer drive) and the first car heaters, introduced in 1938.
In the second World War Smiths factory was hit by a bomb, but re-construction was swift and they were soon back at work. But having survived the war in good order, the post-war period saw a change from purely mechanical to electro-mechanical instruments and then to solid-state electronic instruments.
Many of these were developed at the Cricklewood factory but the economic tide had changed and despite a move of their factory to Wales in 1982, the following year Smith's merged with another great name of the British motor industry, Lucas. Its years of innovation and quality products were not enough to save it from the changes that swept thought the world's motor industry in the 1980s and 1990s.