How it started
1828–1999: Founding and success
AS Watson had its beginnings as the Canton Dispensary and Soda Water Establishment, founded in 1828, as a small dispensary with the mission to provide free medical services to the poor people of the Southern Chinese province of Guangdong (also known as Canton). It moved to Hong Kong and re-emerged as the Hong Kong Dispensary from 1 January 1843 under proprietors Drs. Alexander Anderson and Peter Young, trading at Capt Morgan's Bazaar. The company uses the date it moved to Hong Kong as its official date of establishment and does not describe its period in Guangzhou in its official account of its history; Richard Lord of the South China Morning Post stated that the company did this since one photograph is the only memorabilia and official document from its Guangzhou period. Dr Alexander Skirving Watson joined the company in 1858. In 1869, the Hong Kong Dispensary was appointed to dispense to the Governor of Hong Kong and the Duke of Edinburgh. The company began trading under the name A.S. Watson & Company in 1871.
By 1886, the company had constructed its first factory in Hong Kong, on Stanley Street, registered as a limited company and had also completed its first expansion further into China and to the Philippines. By 1895 the company was operating 35 stores and producing 300 dispensary, toiletry and perfumery lines.
In 1903, Watsons Water was established, selling bottled water in Hong Kong and China. In a 2018 interview, chief operating officer Malina Ngai stated that free drinking water was considered to be of poor quality at the time, and therefore the company was able to establish a market for selling drinking water.
In previous eras Watsons stores sold various kinds of general merchandise, but it became specialized in the pharmacy business as time went on.
1937 saw the Japanese invasion of China and AS Watson halted all operations in China. In 1941, AS Watson celebrated its centenary just months before the Japanese attack and the fall of Hong Kong in December that year. AS Watson eventually resumed business on 1 September 1945.
From Wikipedia’s article on A.S. Watson Group, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2