About Jarrott Watches
Jarrott Watches was founded in 2012 by Zander Cornish-Moore to use his skills and experience to provide watchmaking services in the Oxfordshire area. He now regularly works on the watches, and sometimes clocks, of the local community, as well as providing specialist modification services to the ever growing world of Seiko ‘Mods’. He also builds bespoke watches under the Jarrott brand as well as highly personalised custom commissions.
In 2022 he was admitted as a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers in London, and then in 2023 promoted to the position of Liveryman.
The Clockmakers Company was granted a royal charter by King Charles I in 1631, and it is a great honour to be part of such an august and long established Company. Many of the Company’s members are doing amazing things in the world of mechanical watchmaking, which is currently enjoying a resurgence of interest and development.
Zander’s interest in watches started at a young age and he has always been fascinated by the intricate workings that power them.
History
A question we often get asked is about the name of the company and its origins.
Jarrott Watches gets its name from Zander’s great-great-great uncle, a man called Charles Jarrott. He was a pioneering racing driver, entrepreneur and one of Britain's greatest drivers in the first decade of motor sport, who took part in just about every race that mattered, up to 1905.
Charles Jarrott was born in 1877 and originally planned to make a career in law. He was articled to a solicitor, but gave this up for his real passion, motoring.
The 1902 Paris-Vienna race saw Jarrott at the wheel of one of the new 70 hp, 13.8-litre Panhards built to the 1000 kg maximum-weight formula; he finished eleventh, having repaired the car's broken wooden chassis-frame with wood taken from a bedstead in his hotel room and smuggled out to the car in his trouser legs.
In 1905, he was one of the founders of the Automobile Association. In fact, Jarrott's mechanic, H. P. Small, clearly recalled fitting the first-ever AA badge on Jarrott's De Dietrich. Jarrott became the AA's chairman in 1922. He was also chairman of the Junior Car Club, founder member and vice-president of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, and one of the seven men who founded the Olympia Motor Show.
There has always been a strong link between watchmaking and motorsport, and we feel the name is a fitting tribute to the shared values of performance, attention to detail and an uncompromising desire to succeed.
