A FAMILY-run company founded in Lydney 151 years ago is celebrating a centenary of being a limited company.

Watts of Lydney Group includes South Wales DAF dealer, Watts Truck and Van Centre, and plastics business Urethane, which is still based at the town’s Lighthouse Trade Park.

The Watts Group story actually began in 1870 when David Lazarus Watts, a widowed carpenter, arrived in Lydney and married Esther Stephens, a local girl.

Together they set up a general store and bakery, and later their son Josiah Stephens Watts borrowed £300 from his uncle and purchased a small ironmongery shop when he was 24.

Josiah and his wife Clara’s entrepreneurial spirit ensured that by 1905 they had begun to expand the company and were joined by their sons, Arthur and later John, to make it a family affair.

In 1912, the business established a successful mail delivery service for the Forest of Dean and added a Ford Motor Dealership, and then launched the town’s first purpose-built garage in 1921 shortly after JS Watts and Sons became Watts Garages Limited at the end of 1920.

After both serving in the First World War, John and Arthur resumed their business activities with a renewed vigour.

Arthur bought 200 war surplus Albion heavy vehicles, which he converted or repaired and sold to civilian businesses such as oil suppliers, dairies, breweries and general hauliers, and John started his first scheduled bus service linking the Forest of Dean and Gloucester.

Arthur’s association with the pioneering work on the early diesel engines was an inevitable step towards the re-treading of tyres to meet heavy national demand during the Second World War and then into the retailing of pneumatic tyres in subsequent years.

Their success led to more than 50 years of impressive growth in industrial tyres and Watts Industrial Tyres became a significant global player with manufacturing facilities in Sri-Lanka, China and Brazil as well as having depots across the UK, France and Germany.

In 1975, the design and manufacturing business Urethane Products was added to the portfolio, initially to produce tyres made from polyurethane, but it soon expanded into creating innovative solutions for customers’ needs across diverse range of industries.

In 1999, the group bought a rubber compounding company which included Plysolene, a plastic sheet extrusion business.

The group sold Watts polymers in 2007 and Watts Industrial Tyres in 2009.

The firm has just received the business equivalent of a telegram from the Queen, a Companies House Centenary Certificate in recognition of 100 years of registration as a limited company.

A company spokesperson said: “The incorporation is a milestone well worth celebrating as it is so rare for a family run business to thrive over this length of time across an entire century and all the changes that brings.

“The group stands today with a successful and multi award winning DAF dealership in South Wales; Watts Urethane, a polyurethane manufacturer in Lydney; Plysolene, a thermoplastic sheet extrusion company in West Sussex and a successful property portfolio, Althorpe Properties.

“Innovation has always been key to the Watts Group success and in this vein, Plysolene have recently invested £1.5m in the installation of a brand new Kuhne machine at their site in West Sussex to begin producing ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) in the UK making them the first to do so in England and Wales and so the innovation continues.

“Always keen to give back to the community, the group has been an avid supporter of many local charities such as the Friends of Lydney Hospital, the Royal British Legion, the local rugby and tennis clubs and the local church, to name but a few.

Group Chairman, and fourth generation family member John Thurston, said: ”I feel so privileged to have been able to follow in the footsteps of my grandfather, Arthur Watts, and his sons.

“Whilst in the last 100 years society has changed and technology advanced, for the Group, some things will not change, namely our commitment to each other, and the communities in which we are involved.

“As we look forward in a world where the unexpected can create challenges – we are ‘Fit for the Future’.

“During 2021 I know we will be able to celebrate the past, by continuing to support our communities and others.

“I am most grateful to all those that have made the past 100 years possible, and to the amazing team that are the current foundation of our future.”