DEPARTMENT STORES, FORMER

Allders

In 2012 Allders ceased trading.

Barkers

John Barker worked as a manager in the Whiteley s department store in Bayswater. William Whiteley refused him a partnership in 1870. Barker, with the help of a backer, opened a drapery shop on Kensington High Street. In 1889 Barkers acquired a new building. In 1920 Barkers acquired Derry & Tom s, its principal rival in the district. In 1933 the Art Deco Bernard George-designed Barkers building was completed. In 1957 the company was itself taken over by the House of Fraser department store group.

Location: Barker s Arcade, 63 Kensington High Street, W8 5SE (orange, pink)

Bearmans

Bearmans was a department store on Leytonstone High Road.

Location: 829-837 Leytonstone High Road, E11 1HH

Bon Marché

James Smith owned The Sportsman newspaper. In 1876 his horse Rosebery won both the Cesarewitch and Cambridgeshire stakes at Newmarket. The following year he was able to spend 70,000 on building Bon Marché in Brixton. It was Britain's first purpose-built department store. The building had a steel structure.

Many of its 400 staff lived in Topland House in Ferndale Road. Two subterranean tunnel - one for men and one for women - linked it to the department store.

In 1892 Mr Smith was declared bankrupt.

Selfridge acquired the business in 1926. Fourteen years later John Lewis bought it. In 1984 John Lewis closed it.

Bourne & Hollingsworth

There was a tunnel underneath Oxford Street that enabled Bourne & Hollingsworth s daily takings to be transferred on a trolley into the strong room of a bank the other side of the road. There is a story that when the store closed a decision was made to permanently seal the tunnel. On a Friday a steel plate was placed across the strong room end of the tunnel. From the store end concrete was poured in. On the Monday bank employees found it very difficult to access the strong room. Under the pressure of the concrete the plate had given way and the concrete had poured into the strong room and across its floor.

Location: 120 Oxford Street, W1D 1LT (orange, brown)

The Civil Service Supply Association

The Civil Service Supply Association was a middle-class co-operative. In 1864 a group of Post Office clerks clubbed together to buy half a chest of tea. The following year a group of 40 Post Office staff formed a purchasing co-operative. They opened this to all civil servants. In 1864 a store was opened on Victoria Street. In the 1870s it moved to Strand. In 1927 the co-operative was converted into a private company but retained its name. The store closed in 1982 following a severe fire.

Location: 425 Strand, WC2E 9HG (orange, pink)

Debenhams

Debenhams grew out of a drapery shop that was established on Wigmore Street in 1778. In 1813 William Debenham joined the partnership. Five years later the firm opened its first non-London outlet in Cheltenham.

In 1919 Debenhams acquired Marshall & Snelgrove. Seven years later the Debenham family allowed their controlling interest in the business to be bought out. In the post-1945 era the company was by far the largest owner of provincial department stores in Britain.

In 2021 the Debenhams brand was bought by the virtual clothes retailer Boohoo.

Location: 334-348 Oxford Street, W1C 1JG. (The former premises of Marshall & Snelgrove.) (purple, red)

33 Wigmore Street, W1U 1QX (purple, pink)

Website: www.debenhams.com

Dickens & Jones

Location: 224-244 Regent Street, W1B 2BR

Gamage

Gamage built a sports ground at Wood Green that included a velodrome.

Jordan's

In the 1970s the former Jordan s department became Alfie s Antiques.

Location: 13-25 Church Street, NW8 8DT

Oxford Street

There used to be department stores along the section of Oxford Street that lies to the east of Oxford Circus. Bourne & Hollingsworth was one of them. However, they all closed long ago. It was the opening of Selfridges (1909) that caused the western portion to become the fashionable one.

Location: Bourne & Hollingsworth, 120 Oxford Street, W1D 1LT (orange, brown)

Swan & Edgar

In the early 20^thC Swan & Edgar had a reputation for serving the theatrical world and the demi-monde.

Location: 9-15 Piccadilly, W1J 0DE (purple, red)

Whiteley's

William Whiteley served his apprenticeship as a draper in his native Wakefield. He visited the Great Exhibition of 1851 and was deeply impressed by the way in which an unprecedented array of goods had been displayed in a single building. Four years later he moved to London and started to familiarise himself with the city's wholesale and retail trades.

In 1863 Whiteley opened his first shop in Bayswater. He chose the district because it was a fashionable area and because it was then a terminus of the Metropolitan Line. The business proved to be a great success. It even attracted the patronage of Queen Victoria. The nascent department stores that outgrew their origins as drapery stores were deeply unpopular with those tradesmen in the neighbourhoods where they were located. This was because the small businessmen felt that their own livelihoods were being threatened. In 1876 an effigy of Whiteley was burned on Guy Fawkes night.

In the 1880s the retailer had become a controversial figure. His conduct of his private life had prompted his wife to leave him.

From 1891 on, Whiteley developed farms and food-processing factories at Hanworth to supply his store with produce.

The retailer was murdered in 1907 by Horace Rayner, who was the son of one of his former mistress. Mr Rayner believed himself to be the son of the retailer (and may well have been). The man was tried at the Old Bailey, where he was found guilty of the murder. However, there was a general call for clemency that saved him from being hanged. He was released from prison after having served twelve years of his sentence.

Knightsbridge and Kensington became more fashionable than Bayswater. The business slipped into decline. In 1981 the store closed. Eight years later the building was reopened as a shopping mall.

Location: Queensway, W2 4YN (red, brown)

Website: http://whiteleys.com

Woolland Brothers

In the early 1950s Knightsbridge was deeply unfashionable with shoppers. Harvey Nichols was known as the old ladies store and its neighbour Woollands as the forgotten one .

In 1954 Martin Moss (1923-2007) was appointed to be the managing director of the Debenham Group-owned Woollands. He played a major role in enabling Knightsbridge to become a prime retailing in the post-war era. Terence Conran, a part-time tutor at the Royal College of Art, became involved. Moss s innovations included allowing the 21-year-old Vaneesa Denza to create 21 Shop, a ground-floor shop that was targeted at fashion conscious young people. Graduates of the College who sold through the outlet included Ossie Clark, Marion Foale, Gerald McCann, and Sally Tuffin. Mary Quant and Jean Muir designs were also available.

In 1966 Moss left Woollands to head Simpsons in Piccadilly. Soon afterwards Debenhams sold the Woollands site.

Location: 101 Knightsbridge, SW1X 7RN (red, pink)

David Backhouse 2024