Who is Hans Wilsdorf?

.Rolex Shopping Guide.
Most of the biggest companies in the world owe their success to a visionary who put them on the path to global domination. Like Steve Jobs and Walt Disney, Hans Wilsdorf took his company to the top of his industry through innovation and a dedication to excellence that is still the hallmark of the Rolex brand today.

Photo of Rolex Founder Hans Wilsdorf Circa 1950
Rolex Founder Hans Wilsdorf Circa 1950 (photo: Rolex)
Wilsdorf founded Rolex in 1908, coming up with the name based on how it sounded and how symmetrical the lettering would look when printed on the dial of the watches. Under his leadership, the company brought several game-changing innovations to the wristwatch industry including the Oyster case and the Perpetual rotor.

In addition to the tech innovations he oversaw, Wilsdorf also brought the Rolex brand into the global spotlight by shrewdly tying his products to public figures who were breaking records of their own. World land-speed record breaker Sir Malcolm Campbell and English swimmer Mercedes Gleitze were among the first to offer testimonies about Rolex wristwatches, becoming early examples of the celebrity endorsement model that is prevalent in today's marketing landscape.

Hans Wilsdorf died in 1960, leaving his company and fortune in a trust with the stipulation that Rolex never become a public company. The company remains a private company under the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation to this day and still operates under the paradigms set forth by their founder over a century ago.

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Rolex Founder Hans Wilsdorf Dies in 1960

.History.
“Originality and quality must be our slogan for the future in every country. Every Rolex watch must be an ambassador of quality.” The legacy set forth by visionary Hans Wilsdorf lives on through the international success of the Rolex brand decades after his death on July 6, 1960 in Geneva, Switzerland. 

black and white photo of rolex founder hans wilsdorf circa 1942
Rolex Founder Hans Wilsdorf circa 1942 (photo: Rolex)

Innovation and classic style were never mutually exclusive in Wilsdorf's mind. His desire to outpace the mechanical watch industry of his time by adding utilitarian improvements to wristwatches never overshadowed the importance he placed on design aesthetic. The combination of technical advancement and reverence for beauty is still an integral part of Rolex's success.

Wilsdorf left his fortune and his company to the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, a trust he created upon the death of his wife, May Wilsdorf, in 1944. He stipulated that Rolex was never to become a public company and that part of his fortune be donated to charity. 

“Step boldly. Success demands courage and iron will.”

While he is no longer at its helm, Hans Wilsdorf's imprint is on every wristwatch Rolex manufactures to this day. He tied the brand to excellence and success, and through his words and his actions, guaranteed a future for the company of his creation beyond his own time on Earth.

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Hans Wilsdorf Registers Rolex in 1908

.History.
Born in Bavaria on March 22, 1881, Hans Wilsdorf would go through many struggles before registering the Rolex brand in 1908. In his early life, Wilsdorf and his siblings were met with hostility over their Protestant faith in a mostly Catholic Bavaria at the time. 

The struggle continued when they were orphaned by the time Hans was 12. The children were left in the care of their maternal uncles, who decided to liquidate the family business that the children inherited, allowing them to care for themselves in what would be a difficult transition from adolescence to adulthood. 

photo of rolex founder hans wilsdorf
Rolex Founder Hans Wilsdorf

After finishing boarding school, Hans Wilsdorf worked for Cuna Korten, a company that exported pocket watches and clocks from La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, before serving in the German army in 1902. After his service, he settled down in London, England, where he met and married his wife, Florence Frances May Crotty, in St. Paul's Church in Penge, South London on April 13, 1911. Wilsdorf became a British citizen soon after. (The couple never had children and after May Wilsdorf's death on April 26, 1944, the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation was created to inherit the Wilsdorf's Rolex shares.)

At age 24, after working for a watchmaker in London, he and his older brother-in-law, Alfred Davis, began Wilsdorf & Davis in 1905. They began by producing portfolio watches and watch parts, but Wilsdorf soon decided to apply his expertise to creating precise wristwatches, which were not reliable at the time.
Wilsdorf found success with his first line of wristwatches, and by 1908, he was looking for a name he could attach to his brand that would be easy to pronounce in many languages and also look symmetrical printed on the watches themselves.

"It was one morning, when I was sitting on the upper level of a double-decker powered at that time by horses, driving along Cheapside in London, that a good genie whispered in my ear: Rolex."

   -Hans Wilsdorf (Source: rolexmagazine.com)

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