Accurist watches at Ernest Jones

The Accurist watch collection at Ernest Jones features a wide range of watches for men and ladies including dress watches, sports watches and watches for everyday wear. A prestigious brand with a long history of producing innovative and market leading watches, the Accurist collection covers a wide price range.

Founding fathers

Accurist was founded in 1946 in Clerkenwell, London by Asher and Rebecca Loftus. Selling watches made entirely from Swiss components, which guarantees quality, the brand was established with a reputation for value. Accurist quickly became the first watch company to actively promote the 21 JEWEL lever-movement using Accurist 21 Jewels as their company slogan. To support this promotion Accurist became the first watch company to produce a prime time TV ad campaign.

Once in a lifetime

At the time watches were still seen as a once in a lifetime purchase and so Accurist set out to change this by introducing fashion watches. Richard Loftus created a range of Accurist watches that revolutionised the watch market worldwide. The Accurist 'Old England' collection were soon being worn by the famous and fashionable including the Beatles and Twiggy.

Quality

Accurist went on to open a Swiss office, Accurist SA in La Chaux de Fonds to co-ordinate the manufacturing and sourcing for the company, leading to introduction of digital quartz movement as technology developed from L.E.D to L.C.D.

Concorde, Cleese and winning awards

In the 70's Accurist expanded on the trend for introducing digital watches and its digital quartz watch was chosen as the official watch for the pilots of the newly launched Concorde aircraft. In 1978 Accurist launched an award winning television ad campaign featuring John Cleese to further promote its brand.

The time sponsored by Accurist

In 1986 Accurist became the sponsor of the speaking clock, further enhancing their brand reputation and image and allowing Accurist to use the slogan, "Accurist - the standard by which all watches are set".

The UK's largest brand

By 1993 Accurist had become the UK's largest brand in value terms and now set its sights on the international market. Accurist became the first and only Watch Company to be formally associated with the Greenwich Observatory, providing them with the new Atomic Clock, which officially records the time for the world. In 1995, to celebrate this association with Greenwich Mean Time, The "Greenwich Commemorative collection", was launched in over 20 countries.

World time for the new millenium

In April 1997 Accurist started the official countdown to the Millennium by providing the Old Royal Observatory at Greenwich with a Satellite controlled clock accurate to within 1/10,000,000th of a second to countdown the last 1000 days of the 20th century.

Watch of the year 1997

In July 1997 Accurist won "Volume watch brand of the year" at The UK Jewellery Awards and 1999 saw the launch of Accurist's youth orientated accu.2 range. Supported by a high impact advertising campaign called "no ordinary old timer". Success was instantaneous and the collection was sold in over 1500 outlets across the UK.

More awards and accolades

In 2001 Accurist became the first company to be awarded the prestigious "Customer Service Award" at the UK jewellery awards ceremony. March 2003 saw Accurist further strengthen their original agreement to support the Old Royal Observatory at Greenwich by signing an exclusive license with the National Maritime Museum to produce a range of replica clocks and watches from the Observatory's and Museum's historic collections.

Accurist global award winning watch brand

More recently Accurist expanded into distribution, distributing brands such as Versace, ferragamo and Valentino watches. From humble beginnings in Clerkenwell, Accurist has become a global brand that is renowned for quality and innovation. With a dynamic management team that is committed to the founder's principles, the future for Accurist looks to be just as exciting as the last 60 years.

Explore the full range of Accurist watches now

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