William Hinds (21 November 1887 – 1 June 1957), stage name Will Hammer, was one of the founders of

Hammer Film Productions Hammer Film Productions Ltd. is a British film production company based in London. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic horror and fantasy films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Many of these involve class ...

Jeweller

Hinds was a

jeweller A bench jeweler is an artisan who uses a combination of skills to make and repair jewelry. Some of the more common skills that a bench jeweler might employ include antique restoration, silversmith, Goldsmith, stone setting, engraving, fabricat ...

from

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

who, with his brother Frank, owned and ran Hinds Jewellers. Hinds and his brother had different business priorities, and shortly after the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

they divided the business in two. Both businesses were successful. Frank's part grew into the national jeweller

F. Hinds F. Hinds is a jewellery retailing chain, operating in England and Wales. There are currently 116 F Hinds stores within the United Kingdom. History Beginnings (1856-1990) The chain is an independent retailer which was founded in 1856 by Georg ...

, which has over 100 branches across

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

and is still owned and managed by the Hinds family. Hinds continued to expand his business until he owned 25 jeweller's shops. He diversified into other types of

retail Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and ...

, including operating

barber A barber is a person whose occupation is mainly to cut, dress, groom, style and shave men's and boys' hair or beards. A barber's place of work is known as a "barbershop" or a "barber's". Barbershops are also places of social interaction and publi ...

s above some of the jewellery shops.

Theatrical career

Hinds became involved in music halls and the

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

. His involvement included owning a number of seaside theatres, for example the

West Cliff Theatre The West Cliff Theatre in Clacton-on-Sea, England, dates back to 1894 when Bert Graham, a 21-year-old civil servant, set up a concert party on a patch of waste ground in Agate Road. In 1899, along with Bernard Russell and Will Bentley, Graham mo ...

in Clacton, and performing onstage as a comedian, although it was said that the latter was not his greatest strength. He also ran summer concert parties in conjunction with Jack Payne, the famous bandleader, and led a troupe called Will Hammer's Players, taking his stage name of Hammer from Hammersmith, where he lived. In 1957 he set up Cascade Entertainments Ltd with theatre impresario George Baines and produced "Big Splash" Aqua Show at The Derby Baths in Blackpool. The show featured the singer Robert Earle and a troupe of divers and swimmers and was performed for the summer season. It was during the rehearsals for this show that he died following the bicycle accident.

Motion picture career

Success with his theatres led Hinds to diversify into the increasingly popular motion picture industry. In November 1934, Hinds registered his own film company, Hammer Productions Ltd. Work began almost immediately on the first Hammer film, ''The Public Life of Henry the Ninth'' at the MGM/ATP studios, with shooting concluding on 2 January 1935. During this period Hinds met Spanish émigré

Enrique Carreras Enrique Carreras (6 January 1925 – 29 August 1995) was a Peruvian-born Argentine film director, screenwriter and film producer, and was one of the most prolific film directors in the history of the Cinema of Argentina. Born in Lima, Peru, ...

, a former cinema owner, and on 10 May 1935 they formed a

film distribution Film distribution (also known as Film exhibition or Film distribution and exhibition) is the process of making a movie available for viewing by an audience. This is normally the task of a professional film distributor, who would determine the marke ...

company Exclusive Films. A slump in the British film industry forced Hammer Productions Ltd. into bankruptcy and the company went into liquidation in 1937. Exclusive, however, survived and continued to distribute films made by other companies.

James Carreras Sir James Enrique Carreras (30 January 1909 – 9 June 1990) was a British film producer and executive who, together with William Hinds, founded the British company Hammer Film Productions. His career spanned nearly 45 years, in multiple face ...

(son of Enrique) resurrected the company in 1946 as Hammer Film Productions, the film production arm of Exclusive.Kinsey. ''op cit'' p. 11.

Death

A lifelong interest of Hinds was

cycling Cycling, also, when on a two-wheeled bicycle, called bicycling or biking, is the use of cycles for transport, recreation, exercise or sport. People engaged in cycling are referred to as "cyclists", "bicyclists", or "bikers". Apart from t ...

. He owned a number of cycle shops. Hinds met his death while riding his bicycle near his

Leatherhead Leatherhead is a town in the Mole Valley District of Surrey, England, about south of Central London. The settlement grew up beside a ford on the River Mole, from which its name is thought to derive. During the late Anglo-Saxon period, Leathe ...

home in 1957, a year after the centenary of the family jewellery business.

Family

Hinds's oldest son William "Bill" Hinds continued to run the jewellery shops for many years. These were sold in the 1960s, but Bill continued as a jeweller. His widow eventually sold his remaining shop in

Worthing Worthing () is a seaside town in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 111,400 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Brighton and Ho ...

, Sussex to the other half of the family, reuniting the jewellery business. It is now a branch of F. Hinds. His second son, Anthony "Tony" Hinds, rejoined Hammer Film Productions in 1946. He had one more son Geoffrey Hinds and two daughters Shirley Hinds and Susan Hinds. At the time of his death he had been living with his long term partner Pat Hinds, mother of Susan, for thirteen years.

References

External links

*
Official Hammer website

F. Hinds website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hinds, William 1887 births 1957 deaths English film producers British film production company founders Hammer Film Productions Music hall performers People from Hammersmith 20th-century English businesspeople English jewellers Horror film producers