Retail Jeweller, the industry leading jewellery and watch trade title in the UK, started life in Birmingham in 1925, when the British Jewellers’ Association (BJA), or the Birmingham Jewellers & Silversmiths’ Association, as it was then, took the decision to produce a monthly bulletin of the Association’s activities.

All printed in-house, with the exception of the front cover, the bulletin – which at this point didn’t even have an official name – offered ad space priced at £12 per page, per annum. Fast forward four years to 1929, and the bulletin was formalised, with an editorial committee to oversee it. By this time, it was being produced by professional printers and featured specially commissioned articles, including transcripts of the lunchtime lectures organised by the Association.

In April 1933, such was the success of the monthly bulletin, it was proposed that it be expanded into a complete trade magazine entitled the Birmingham Jeweller, edited by Norman Tiptaft. It was decided that the publication would be sent monthly to retailers, wholesalers and shippers of jewellery worldwide.

The first issue of the Birmingham Jeweller was dispatched on August 26, 1933. Circulation was around 8,000 copies per month and the cost of producing the - first 48-page issue, including printing, posting, envelopes and paying for contributing articles, was around £205. Ads in the magazine were offered at £6 per page, and the Association agreed to subsidise the first four issues by donating £100.

The magazine proved so successful that its original predecessor, the monthly bulletin, was discontinued in October 1933 and later that year in December, its title was changed from the Birmingham Jeweller to the British Jeweller in order to appeal to a wider range of advertisers.

The British Jeweller continued as the official magazine of the BJA right up until the late 1990s, undergoing several different incarnations, changing its name to British Jeweller and Watchbuyer in 1970, and back again to British Jeweller in 1983.

By the 1980s, the magazine was no longer being published by the BJA. Instead, its publication was overseen by Thomson, later known as emap Business Communications, the business-to-business (B2B) division of publishing group emap. At that time, emap also published the official journal of the National Association of Goldsmiths (NAG), entitled Retail Jeweller, a publication that was started by Eric Bruton in the early 1970s.

While British Jeweller was a monthly magazine, Retail Jeweller was published fortnightly in a broadsheet format. emap continued to produce both publications concurrently up until 1997, when the decision was taken to merge the two titles into one monthly publication, initially called Retail Jeweller & British Jeweller.

This name only lasted for a very short period of time before the British Jeweller part was dropped and the magazine henceforth became known as Retail Jeweller. The magazine, still published by emap today, started to be produced independently of both the BJA and NAG – the two trade bodies responsible for its creation – from the late 1990s.

Celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2025, Retail Jeweller today is so much more than a trade magazine. It is a complete B2B brand serving the entire UK jewellery and watch industry, connecting key players and thought leaders through content, events and networking opportunities.

Retail Jeweller currently boasts 12 print issues a year, a website that attracts around 22,000 unique users a month, dedicated supplements and reports, and a market-leading events programme including the UK Jewellery Awards, which was launched in 1993, and the Retail Jeweller Festival, a trade event launched in 2021.

It is the only paid-for subscription title operating in the UK jewellery and watch sector and with over 90% of subscribers being key decision makers from this country’s leading jewellery and watch retailers, suppliers, brands, designers and manufacturers, it is easy to see why Retail Jeweller has stood the test of time.