Meet Colin Andrews FBHI – who was voted onto the Guild’s Board of Directors at May’s Annual General Meeting.

Colin, a former Guild Prize winner, was a student at both Birmingham City University (2011-2012) and the British School of Watchmaking (2012-2013). He then worked for a number of watch repair workshops before ending up with Watches of Switzerland Group, eventually becoming Head of the Service Centre. He became a Fellow of the British Horological Institute in 2019.

In the same year, after deciding that he wanted to move into bespoke watchmaking, he started working full-time at his Great British Watch Company which he founded in 2011. This was born out of a desire to look at the history of horology and the role Britain played in  the development of watchmaking, and the subsequent decline of the industry.

For the last five years Colin has been busy designing, developing and producing his own hand-made watches using parts of an old war-time spitfire, named ‘The Few’ (see TimePiece, July-August 2022 and September-October 2022). These have been incredibly successful and he recently auctioned for charity one of his other eatch series called ‘Dirty Dozen’ series at the British Watchmakers’ Day. It sold for £5,200 – 50% more than the original price. He is now busy working to complete his new series ‘The Few’ which are already  almost sold out.

He said he was delighted to join the Board and hoped that he would be a valuable addition. ‘I feel very honoured to be accepted onto the Guild’s Board of Directors and very much look forward to working with the existing members and helping in any way I can.’