Thomas Scrowcroft

One of our later Watchmakers, Tom started his horological career in Bolton, as a seven year indentured apprentice at Lanzetters, the clockmaker, watchmaker and jewellery company on Great Moor Street.

Meantime, Tom spent 4 years on a Day Release Course at college to graduate in Horology with British Horological Institute. At the end of the course he was employed to teach it.

In 1969 Tom joined Mappin & Webb as a watch maker. In the mid 1970’s  he opened agency for Omega Watch Company, covering mainly the north west of England and Scotland. He eventually employed 15 watchmakers. Then,in conjunction with the Engineering Industry Training Board, he started an apprentice school on how to repair watches from A-Z.  

But in the 1980s the scene changed dramatically for Tom, Mechanical watches rapidly went out of fashion with the introduction of quartz watch, which was new, inivitive and inexpensive. In Switzerland 1,200 watchmaking cottage factories closed down. Many horologists became redundant. Tom switched to restoring clolcks for the British Metropolitan Museums.