Smith+Nephew has a history dating back 160 years to the family enterprise of Thomas James Smith who opened a small pharmacy in Hull, England in 1856. On his death in 1896, his nephew Horatio Nelson Smith took over the management of the business.

A few days after the declaration of World War 1 in 1914, Horatio Nelson Smith (the nephew of the company founder T. J Smith) met with an envoy of the French President in London. The company was awarded a contract to supply £350,000 of surgical and field dressings, to be delivered in five months.

By the late 1990s, Smith+Nephew had expanded into being a diverse healthcare conglomerate with operations across the globe, including various medical devices, personal care products and traditional and pioneering woundcare treatments.

In 1998, Smith+Nephew announced a major restructuring to focus management attention and investment on three business units — wound management, endoscopy and orthopaedics — which offered high growth and margin opportunities.

Smith+Nephew was incorporated and listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1937 and in 1999 the Group was also listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

In 2001, Smith+Nephew became a constituent member of the FTSE-100 index in the UK. This means that Smith+Nephew is included in the top 100 companies traded on the London Stock Exchange measured in terms of market capitalisation.

Today, Smith+Nephew is a public limited company incorporated and headquartered in the UK and doing business in many countries around the world.

Check out some more dates that has shaped our history of pioneering medical technology:

Smith+Nephew Purpose - Video