Anthony J Smith (Gloucester) Ltd - the first fifty years... and counting

This year marks a half a century since the incorporation of Anthony’s company – although his fascination with electricity and lighting goes back further, much further.

Anthony (Tony) recalls that in the late 1940’s when he attended Sir Thomas Rich’s Grammar School in Gloucester, he would spend much of his spare time experimenting with a bare light bulb and reflectors from old heaters trying to floodlight his parents’ rear garden. He also recalls a time when he tried to make an arc lamp himself out of some carbon rods from a number of discarded batteries: the result was a small explosion, a puff of smoke, instant attention from the neighbours and a stern reprimand from his father.

Tony was always fascinated with electricity and engineering and was fortunate to secure an apprenticeship at Williams & James one of Gloucester’s many engineering companies working to supply the Naval and oil industries. He remained there rising to a senior position for 21 years until, with his wife Breda, they took the leap to start a company working from the basement in their own home.

During the early years, Tony worked as sole trader, catering for the electrical needs and working with plumbing and heating engineers who were busily installing central heating systems within Gloucestershire’s domestic properties. His reputation for quality, reliability and attention to detail soon spread and Tony soon needed to employ more staff. He also needed more office, workshop and storage space, so the company moved into its first (and current) commercial space, an old pumphouse in a redundant listed mill building in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire.

It was shortly after this that his first foray into church lighting happened. Monsignor Roche, Tony’s own parish priest at St Peter’s Church, Gloucester, asked if he could rewire and relight the church as the current wiring system had fallen into a state of disrepair. Of course, Tony was more than happy to oblige and carried out the work in between his many other projects.

It was during this period that Tony, along with other technically capable tradesmen and surveyors in the congregation, were invited by Fr Michael Fitzpatrick (a young assistant priest) to form a new Fabric Committee at St Peter’s to oversee and assist in the maintenance of their three buildings. Tony was elected to be chairman, a position he still holds today.

Following his promotion a few years later, Canon Michael returned to St Peter’s as parish priest and his and Tony’s friendship has lasted ever since, not only in the Gloucester parish but also in other parishes throughout the diocese.

A few years later, St Peter’s suffered an arson attack which resulted in quite severe damage to the confessional area which houses the electrical distribution equipment. There was also damage to the organ, along with a certain amount of smoke and water damage to the entire church, and Tony was asked to assist again.

It was at this time that Tony approached Thorn Lighting for the first time. They were more than happy to assist and it enabled them to trial and install a new emerging lamp type – sodium deluxe! At that time low voltage lighting hadn’t even been invented so those upgrades were installed later, along with ceramic metal halide, dimmable compact fluorescents and with a viable LED solution as they became available over the next four decades.

Tony’s close working relationship and involvement with Thorn Lighting over many years allowed him to assist with the development, trial and testing of new emerging technologies and products. He was then able to provide real-world, mutually beneficial feedback as many of them had been used for the first time in church environments.

During the following few years, as the company’s hard-earned reputation for designing and installing church lighting and wiring systems within Gloucestershire and the surrounding counties grew, it became sensible for the company to become limited and this was done in 1976.

At the same time that the church lighting side of the company was expanding, Tony was approached by Laura Ashley who needed assistance with lighting her rapidly increasing number of homeware retail outlets throughout the UK. He worked closely with the Thorn Lighting development team and it allowed them to develop a flexible lighting portfolio that could be adapted to suit the differing requirements for the individual shops.

As the years and church lighting projects rolled by, with newer technologies rolled out, Tony and his employees enjoyed developing relationships and friendships with churches, clergy and architects, many of which lasted for very many years, so much so that the majority of the company’s church work came from recommendations, referrals and repeat business with the same clergy as they moved from parish to parish.

This has continued to the current day where quite a bit of the current workload comes from churches where the company installed new lighting twenty or thirty years ago and are now in need of being upgraded to latest generation LED with scene setting and control systems installed. In most of these instances the wiring systems can be adapted rather than being completely replaced, which is always welcomed by the churches.

Another notable part of the history of the company for Tony was back in the 1990’s when he was on holiday with his wife in Norfolk. They visited Sandringham House and St Mary’s Church and he was surprised how bad the lighting in the church was. When he returned home, he wrote a ‘tongue in cheek’ letter to the rector, Canon George Hall, politely informing him what he thought of the lighting, whilst at the same time including some of the company literature.

Tony didn’t really expect a response but within a few weeks a letter arrived suggesting in a ‘tongue in cheek’ manner that if he felt he had any advice worth giving then he should make an appointment to make a return visit.

The lighthearted yet warm responses and exchanges of letters continued, resulting in a preliminary scheme being designed and samples installed over the Christmas period for the Royal owners to give their seal of approval. The faculty was duly applied for and granted in the normal way.

The installation was carried out just in time for the following Christmas before the Royal party arrived and Tony was invited to read the first lesson in front of the Royals when the lights were used officially for the first time. It was an honour that Tony will never forget – especially as both he and his wife are devout Catholics.

The company were invited back for a second project to install the external floodlighting at Sandringham Church and have returned countless times since to carry out repairs and upgrades to LED when called upon to do so. The work carried out at Sandringham Church has probably been the highlight of Tony’s career in illuminating the nation’s churches. The two employees Tony entrusted with this work were Che Polley and Neil Blake who, with Tony, are the current directors. Between the two of them they have a combined service to the company of nearly 65 years.

Tony is fully aware that any company is only as good as its employees as, once a project has commenced, they are the connection between the company and the client. The skills his employees have are of obvious importance to the company and its clients but so is the respect they have for the buildings they are working in.

The company and its loyal, dedicated employees have been responsible for very many church projects over the last 50 years and Tony feels that every single project – large or small, architecturally challenging and beautiful or non-listed, old or modern and of any denomination – is as important as each other and he feels privileged to make a difference with the opportunity he and the company have been given.

Over the years, the company has relit many beautiful ecclesiastical buildings, including the exterior of Worcester Cathedral, the Cistercian Abbey at Mount St Bernard, the Benedictine Abbey at Belmont, Pershore Abbey, Malmesbury Abbey, Malvern Priory, Plymouth Cathedral and of course St Mary Magdalene on the Royal estate at Sandringham.

The interesting and challenging projects continue for Anthony J Smith (Glos) Ltd and much of that work still comes from recommendations and referrals, a few recent projects being for previous clients who are now requiring full LED upgrades. Many of these have allowed for the inclusion of easy to operate and alter scene setting systems which have been based around the use of the existing cabling and hence without the need for a full rewire.

At the age of 90, Tony has not given up on his and his wife’s last 50 years work and he still regularly calls into the office. He is rightly proud of what he and Breda, together with their dedicated staff, have achieved. He has become the company’s unofficial photographer and looks forward to going out in the darker evenings to photograph recently completed projects so that a calendar can be produced to showcase the previous 12 months work in illuminating many of the country’s churches.

• For further information visit www.anthonyjsmith.co.uk.