Longines, a brief history

Longines is pronounced (LON-JEANS)

Longines has been around for nearly 200 years and was originally named Raigul Jeune & Cie. The company was founded in 1832 by Auguste Agassiz who was a Swiss watchmaker. Auguste also had two partners, Henri Raiguel and Florian Morel, both were lawyers at the time but by 1846 the two lawyers had retired and left the business. A few years later Auguste brought in his nephew Ernest Francillion who was a trained economist, bright and enterprising Ernest would be the driving factors behind a lot of the brands best ideas and innovations. One of early and important designs Ernest came up with was for a pocket watch design that used the crown to wind the movement rather than the conventional keys.

From 1867 onward Ernest took control of the company due to Auguste’s poor health and the company looked toward more modern production methods by securing the first factory that would be able to mass produce products. The factory was in St Imier, known locally as Les Longine (Long Meadow) this is where the iconic brand name was born.

Ernest Francillion

To help further the brand Ernest brought on Jaques David, an engineer who was appointed Technical Director and placed in charge of the new factory. As all the pieces of the puzzle began to form Longines was now able to develop and create its first in house movement known as the 20A the movement housed an anchor escapement which was wound and set via a pendent crown. The movement won Longines an award at the 1867 Universal Exhibition in Paris.

In 1876 Jaques went to the Worlds Fair in Philidelphia to get ideas on how Longines could move forward. It was a great success and Jaques returned with many unique ideas. Jaques had wrote a 108 page report on his findings and this report is now considered to be one of the most significant pieces written in watchmaking history.

In 1878 Longines creates its first chronograph movement, the 20H. It was known as a ‘mono-pusher’ this meant that all three functions (start, stop and reset) were controlled via then crown. Now Longines could mass produce stopwatches for professional events and as such Longines became well known within equestrian sports like racing and jumping.

By 1880 Longines had become well known for quality and precision timepieces. Ernest made the decision to trademark the Longines name in an effort to stop copies and counterfeits damaging the brand. Later in 1889 Longines also trademarked the wing logo design.

In recent years Longines have created some of the more known iconic models but their heritage remains that of the Swiss brilliance and engineering greatness. Longines will continue to dominate and be a leader in the watchmaking world and live by their slogan “Elegance is and atitude”

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