Our Story

If you’ve found your way to this page, then you’re wanting to find out more about the brand.

I’ll be glad to take you on a brief tour of our history.

I’m Timothy Smith – the current Managing Director of Goodwin Smith. I say current because I’m the fourth generation of the Goodwin-Smith family business.

We’ve been making shoes and clothes since 1928. To put that into a time perspective, sliced bread hadn’t been invented when we setup. No really, it wasn’t.

Goodwin Smith all began – as many great things do -outside a pub – less than a mile down the road from where our HQ is today. Two rival shoemakers stood face-to-face arguing about which one of them could make the better shoe – Ernie Goodwin or Walter Smith, my great granddad.

Each man came from different backgrounds: Ernie a Manchester City right-winger, and Walt a hardy coal miner. They soon found they shared the same ideals: a passion not just footwear but quality footwear…and a good night out on the town! After that argument outside the pub, Goodwin and Smith decided to join forces. And now, about 90 years later, little has changed. Although the infamous pub is long gone.

Under my leadership, our company has developed the ‘Goodwin Smith’ brand to celebrate our two founders. Like Ernie and Walter, the Goodwin Smith ethos represents the epitome of the modern man who knows that though we may not all be cut from the same cloth we can chose our own footprint.

Every Goodwin Smith shoe maintains the highest standard in footwear construction, because the two founding lads put their pints to one side and hatched out a plan to create superior footwear. And the least we can do, four generations on, is to honour and uphold what they stood for. Fashions may come and go, but quality is earned. Whether or not it is something you deserve…well, that’s your story.