Roger W. Smith grew up in Bolton, England, and trained at Manchester School of Horology in the late 1980s, building a reputation for technical-skill apprenticeship work. His final-year project was a hand-finished pocket watch incorporating George Daniels' co-axial escapement; Smith presented the finished watch to Daniels at his Isle of Man workshop. Daniels rejected the work as not meeting his finishing standards and sent Smith away. Smith spent the next five years rebuilding the watch to Daniels' specifications, returning multiple times for evaluation; on the third visit Daniels accepted the work and offered Smith an apprenticeship.
The apprenticeship ran 1998-2003 at Daniels' workshop on the Isle of Man. Daniels was at this point in his late 70s, working on the "Space Traveller" pocket watch series and the Anniversary watch series (35 wristwatches built to commemorate Daniels' 35-year apprenticeship beginning). Smith worked alongside Daniels on the Anniversary series; the apprenticeship was structured as traditional master-apprentice transmission of the Daniels Method (the technique of hand-building all 35 components of a watch from raw stock).
"Daniels rejected my first watch. He rejected my second watch. The third time he said I had finally understood the standard. That was when I started learning."- Roger W. Smith on his Daniels apprenticeship
After the Anniversary series completed (~2010-2011), Daniels died on 21 October 2011 at his Isle of Man workshop; Smith inherited the workshop and the responsibility for continuing the Daniels tradition. Smith's own production began with the Series 1 wristwatch (12 pieces, 2013-2018) and the Series 2 wristwatch (continuing production); each is a hand-finished co-axial-escapement watch made from raw stock at the workshop, producing approximately 10-12 watches per year.
The Daniels Method as practiced by Smith involves hand-building every component of the watch from raw bar stock: gear teeth cut by hand, balance wheels poised by hand, escape wheels machined to spec on a hand-operated lathe, dials enamelled by hand, hands cut and bevelled by hand, cases turned and finished by hand. The watch contains essentially zero outsourced components; even the springs, pivots, and screws are made in-house. The total per-watch labour is approximately 2,000 hours (one full year of one watchmaker's work for each watch).
Smith is the most-revered modern English watchmaker; the Series 2 retail price is approximately CHF 200,000-300,000; secondary-market premium has reached CHF 600,000-800,000 for early Series 1 examples. The waiting list typically extends 7-10 years. Smith has trained additional apprentices (including Craig Struthers) and maintains the Isle of Man workshop as a living continuation of the English watchmaking tradition; his work is the modern reference standard for what hand-built watchmaking can be.
