Company profile
A proud history and an exciting future
Bristol’s timelines .jpg)
1801: First recorded activity as a clothing maker in Bristol
1830s: Began exporting clothing to the West Indies
1850s: Started exporting to Australasia
1899: Bristol moves to its new Staple Hill factory on a greenfield site
1910: Fire destroys the factory. The company relocates
to temporary premises through most of World War I
1917: The company moves back to its rebuilt Staple Hill factory
1920s: Export business had expanded into South America and South Africa
1925: The company is employing 66 people
1930s: Bristol develops new business in the design and manufacture of uniforms for the public and private sectors
1937: First tunics for the Royal Air Force are made
1964: Wathen Gardiner becomes a limited company
1965: Bristol Uniforms begins trading under a separate identity
1970s: Bristol introduces the first Nomex fabric fire tunics. It is closely involved in the development of both the T63 and, later, the Home Office A19 and A26 specification firefighter clothing
1999: The Hill family sells the company which becomes the major player within the UK based BTQ Group
2000: Bristol introduces its managed care service for the fire and rescue sector
2003: Pioneering physiology trials at Birmingham University, conducted independently by Human Vertex with volunteer firefighters, paves the way for the introduction of a new generation of lighter weight PPE. Ergotech® and Ergotech Action® firefighter garments are launched
2005: Bristol enters the police PSU market with new designs for male and female public order and crowd control (POCC) protective garments. Overseas, Bristol now has 50 appointed distributors
2006: 
Bristol’s prototype USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) garment is developed for Merseyside FRS and becomes the basis for the design of today’s USAR kit
2007: The government’s National Procurement Strategy (NPS) for firefighter clothing, the Integrated Clothing Project (ICP) results in Bristol securing the national contract to supply PPE and non-PPE items over a 15 year period
2008: Bristol enters the ambulance market with a new design technical rescue garment for inner cordon use. Initially adopted by the Scottish Ambulance Service, the distinctive green PPE is now in use by all England’s ambulance HARTs (Hazardous Area response Teams)
ICP procurement and managed services options for the fire .jpg)
and rescue service are finalised. Bristol secures the contract and the ICP is launched in March
2009: Further growth in sales in the UK and overseas markets created the need for larger stock storage facilities. A new 20,000m2 International Distribution Centre was opened in the autumn which facilitated the relocation of all finished goods from the Staple Hill site to a site close to the motorway system.
2011: The company now has over 70 distributors worldwide and is actively supplying firefighter PPE to 110 countries around the globe, and has launched its new range of structural firefighter clothing 'XFlex', which is ergonically designed to provide ultimate fit and comfort, with distinctive styling. XFlex is available in various fabric combinations.
A bit more about us
In the early 19th century Bristol developed a thriving clothing industry based around the woollen mills of Gloucestershire. Most of the company’s history between the 1830’s and the end of the century is characterised by the growth founded on the development of a lucrative export trade – first with the West Indies in the early 1830s and later with Australasia from 1854. (See our development in Bristol’s timelines)
The beginnings of the firm Wathen Gardiner, which eventually became Bristol Uniforms, are set in the early 1860’s when Sir Charles Wathen joined the firm in 1862 in partnership with Henry Gardiner. He vigorously pursued the export markets of the world in the vast British Empire basing the success of the business on providing consistently high quality clothing from the Bristol factory. He is reputed to have bought wool landed from ships from Australia and New Zealand early in the morning and have turned this into sales of ready-to-wear clothing by the end of the same day!
By the mid 1930s a new business had emerged with the design and sale of civilian uniforms to both public and private sectors. Customers during this period included the Board of Trade, water companies and bus operators. In 1937 tunics for the Royal Air Force were made for the first time.
The mid 1960s was a period of major change. Continuing links with the military bore fruit when permanent firefighters were recruited to handle emergencies at RAF airfields and the company was asked to develop suitable protective clothing. This saw the introduction of the first aluminised suits, which were loosely designed around the buoyancy suits developed by the company for pilots during the war, and created export opportunities as well as UK business.
The T63 was introduced as the forerunner of the modern fire suit and incorporated a serge material with a fire retardant finish. There was, at this time, no national standard for firefighter clothing. Pat Hill, who had become the owner of the company in 1964, created Bristol Uniforms as a separate trading entity in 1965. The company became a pioneer during the 1970s when its approaches to the London Fire Brigade and the Home Office led to the beginnings of a long period of product development. First came the A19 Home Office specification which was a Nomex® outershell short tunic with yellow PVC wet legs. This was followed by the A26 Home Office specification, the forerunner of the first bunker style fire coat which drew heavily on Bristol’s fire garment design at the time.
Eventually, the first European Standard for firefighter protective clothing was introduced in 1995. The working party, on which Bristol’s technical staff were represented, started work in 1992 and EN469:1995 became the first standard to cover all countries in the European Union.
The company was sold in 1999 and is now part of the international BTQ Group including Bristol Fire Apparel http://www.bristolfireapparel.com, Topps Safety Apparel http://www.toppssafetyapparel.com and Quaker Safety Products http://www.quakersafety.com
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