1845
The Big Medicine Shop, Macau
Thomas Boswell Watson arrives in Macau and opens the Big Medicine Shop. It is the start of a pharmacy business that would last for generations.
About
A family enterprise built to outlast us
We manage the assets of the descendants of Thomas Boswell Watson and Alexander Skirving, with more than seventy years of investing behind us across public and private markets.
Heritage · Est. 1845
A history of enterprise and creativity to build on
For nearly two centuries the family has moved between medicine, art, railways, mining and, now, science.
c. 1850
Physician, painter & friend of Chinnery
Watson was a painter as well as a doctor, and a friend of the artist George Chinnery. He built up one of the largest Chinnery collections in the family, later sold across several auctions, with HSBC among the main buyers.
1860
A.S. Watson is founded
The medicine business is leased to Anthony Skirving Watson and renamed A.S. Watson, a name that lasted well into the next century.
1863
Rail, mining & civic life at the Cape
The family helped build the railways in South Africa and worked closely with the early mining men of the late 1800s. T. Watson was Deputy Mayor of Cape Town in 1863, and later Mayor of Rondebosch.
1981
A house passes on
A.S. Watson is sold to the Hutchison group under Li Ka Shing. That closed the pharmacy chapter, though the family kept investing.
Today
The multi-family office
With more than seventy years of investing behind it, across public and private markets, the family now runs one office that brings together its building, mining and technology interests, and puts money into the areas it believes will matter this century.