Hans Wilsdorf

Wilsdorf worked for a watch exporter in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, before moving to London, where he learned the watch trade and the export business.

Hans Wilsdorf (1881-1960) was a German-born entrepreneur who founded Wilsdorf & Davis in London in 1905 with Alfred Davis to sell wristwatches with Swiss movements. He registered the Rolex name in 1908, moved the business to Geneva after the First World War, and drove key innovations such as the waterproof Oyster case (1926) and the Perpetual self-winding rotor (1931). He also founded Tudor in 1926. After his wife's death he set up the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation in 1945, and on his death in 1960 it became the owner of Rolex. Hans Wilsdorf was born in 1881.