Dear Motley Officers, Crew and Friends, I walked past Debenhams on Oxford Street last week and was shocked to see parts of the building being pulled down. Debenhams was one of the oldest stores in London. It opened in Wigmore Street in 1778, though it did not become a department store until much later.
Sadly, department stores are closing all around us. There are only a few of these grand ladies left in London, so I thought I would talk about the most famous ones, and include some links for present ideas. These are all luxury stores so I am afraid there will be no bargains.
In their heyday the stores many ‘departments’ sold a wide variety of goods. They were glamorous, fun places with helpful assistants, dazzling displays, especially the Christmas wonderlands, and promotional demonstrations of the latest gadgets.
The Parisian store Bon Marché was the first, starting with a small shop that by 1865 had developed into a department store. The concept was expanded when, in 1896, John Wanamaker bought an abandoned railroad station in Philadelphia, USA. He turned this into a large department store. Wanamaker’s innovations have become standard in stores. He invented the price tag, allowed returns, and opened the first restaurant inside a store. Wanamaker also set the standard in advertising - he stated facts and kept his promises.
Fortnum & Mason is the oldest department store in London, founded in 1707. In 1705 Hugh Mason ran a small store in St James Market, close to where the store is now. William Fortnum rented a room in Mason’s house. At the time Fortnum was a footman at the court of Queen Anne1, and it is suggested that he started his merchant trade by collecting old candles from the palace (there were a lot of half-used candles, since they were replaced with new ones every day), melted them down and sold them. The two friends started a grocery store, which developed into the department store Fortnum & Mason. Until 1839, when the Royal Mail penny post was started, they also provided mailboxes and delivered letters for customers.
The building you see today was opened in 1927. The inside of the store has changed over time but the beautiful façade, with its large windows, remains the same. In 1964 a large clock was placed over the main door. Every hour the doors open, and the models of Mr Fortnum & Mr Mason emerge and bow their heads to each other, while chimes are played on the 18 bells. And look out for bees, the store has its own hives, on the roof!
Fortnum & Mason is still famous for its food hall. Their very expensive hampers, usually in heavy wicker baskets (necessitating the use of a butler), are magnificent. Hampers have been sent around the world. The 1922 British Everest expedition included a Fortnum & Mason hamper, which contained 60 tins of quail in foie gras and four dozen bottles of champagne.
Try the ultimate Ruby Chocolate Library Bar, 75g. £6.95. Fortnum & Mason developed this chocolate over 13 years. It is “naturally lipstick pink with intense fruity notes”.
Or have a treat and order a Fortnum & Mason Christmas hamper. They start at £70, with the most expensive at £6000.
Harrods. Charles Henry Harrod established a wholesale grocery store in the East End of London. But his enterprise nearly failed when, in 1836, he was convicted of receiving stolen goods and almost transported to Australia. Instead he served a prison sentence. He was released in 1837.
In 1849, Harrod took over a small shop on the site of the current store in Knightsbridge. The shop was just a single room with two assistants and a messenger boy. Harrod's son Charles Digby Harrod built the business and Harrods rapidly expanded into the adjoining buildings. By 1881 the store employed one hundred people. In 1883, the store burnt down. The Harrods building you see today was built in 1905 but by this time C. D Harrod had sold the store (in 1889 for about £14 million in today’s money), and it was floated on the stock exchange.
Harrods has arguably became the most famous department store in London. It has roughly 300 departments, 20 restaurants, a bank, and a beauty salon, and has always been a byword for luxury and expense. The Harrods motto is ‘Omnia Omnibus Ubique’, Latin for ‘all things for all people, everywhere’. And they really meant you could buy anything at Harrods, including wild animals.
The actress Beatrice Lillie is said to have given Noël Coward an alligator, bought from Harrods. In 1969 John Rendall and Ace Bourke bought a lion cub that lived with them in their London flat. They drove down the King’s Road with the lion (called Christian) in the back of their open top car, and went on trips to the seaside.
Christian inevitably grew too big for the London scene, so he was sent to Kenya and successfully introduced into the wild. Due to the 1976 Endangered Species Act, Harrods stopped selling wild animals, though they had a pet store and a pet spa for a while.
You can buy your own lion at Harrods. Admittedly he is a 23 cm high toy, but he has the excellent name, Fuddlewuddle Lion, for £21.95.
Or a lion clutch bag embellished with crystals, for £6425.
For Christmas decorations in 1959 Harrods placed 1,100 light bulbs on the outside of the building. It was so popular that they decided to keep the lights and added more. Nowadays Harrods is lit up every night by 12,000 light bulbs; 300 bulbs have to be changed every day.
Like many developments, the modern department store became possible because of the growth of cities in the 19th Century and consequently there were more customers. The store supply chains kept up with demand due to new, efficient railways, and electricity enabled stores to stay open after dark and operate lifts, leading to larger stores.
My favourite London department store is Liberty. Arthur Lasenby Liberty was the son of a draper and he worked in the trade from the age of 16. In 1875, he opened his own shop, Liberty & Co., in Regent Street, London. He sold ornaments, fabrics and ‘objets d'art’ from the Far East, which were very fashionable at the time.
The building looks magnificent and like it may be from the Tudor period. Actually, the shop was built in 1924, around the existing store so trading could continue. The timbers of two ships, HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan, were used in the construction. More than 24,000 cubic feet of ships’ oak and teak timber were used in the building’s construction, with the vessels’ decks forming the flooring of the store – that you still walk on today. The HMS Impregnable was built from 3,040 100-year-old oaks from the New Forest, while the HMS Hindustan measured the exact length and height of the completed store. The rooms were designed to be like a home, and some still have fireplaces.
Liberty is full of little quirks, like the portraits of Henry VIII's six wives on the back of the main doors, or the St George & the Dragon clock outside the store. Liberty said, "I was determined not to follow existing fashions but to create new ones.” In the 1890s Liberty helped develop Art Nouveau and supported many designers of the period.
Wrap your presents with Festive Baubles Cotton Gift Wrap in Liberty fabric. £10.95 and help save the planet (as long as you reuse it many times!).
Liberty is famous for its silk scarves. This Christmas Love Silk Twill Scarf costs £235. It has a picture of the store in the middle and also comes in pink.
Selfridges. At the turn of the 20th Century, American Harry Gordon Selfridge wanted to see if he could bring some American commercialism to London, and shake up the existing utilitarian department stores.
He opened Selfridges on Oxford Street in 1908, and he managed to shake things up pretty well. Selfridge made shopping a fun experience, the department store became a destination and a form of leisure. Queen Victoria had died only seven years before, and there were still strict Victorian expectations of women’s behaviour; they were often confined to the home or to limited social engagements.
But Selfridges was a socially acceptable place to visit. A sensational shop, where you could wander around the store looking at the amazing array of merchandise, go to educational & scientific exhibitions, meet friends and have lunch. Also Selfridges had the first public toilets for women in a department store, which meant women could stay away from home for longer. The store was a big hit and influenced other department stores in the UK.
Selfridge was a showman and in the 1920s and 1930s the roof of the store hosted terraced gardens, cafes, a mini golf course and an all-girl gun club. John Logie Baird gave the first public demonstration of moving silhouette images by television in the store, in April 1925.
Selfridges remains more avant garde than other London department stores. They have a Project Earth, their sustainability strategy, “to reinvent retail and change the way we shop and how we do business”. It includes transitioning to more sustainable materials. The following are in the Project Earth section, though it is unclear how they are more sustainable than other gifts.
Festive mini mince pie advent calendar £39.99. 24 mini mince pies.
Penhaligon's Portraits scent library £30. Penhaligon's is a famous British perfume house, founded in the late 1860s. The scents are very expensive, so this is a cheaper way to try them.
There are still some other department stores in London, still trading or sadly closed, but alas I just have room left to tell of Arthur Gamage. He founded the now closed department store of Gamages of Holborn in 1878, especially famous for its toy department. When Gamage died in 1930 rumour has it that he lay in state in the department store's motoring department, and for three days his staff stood vigil.
Enjoy shopping!
As always, any links are provided to give the reader more information. I do not make any money from these links. Where possible permissions have been sought for the use of images and text, unless they are in the Public Domain. If there is an issue with copyright, please contact me. I am an amateur historian covering a wide range of subjects. I do careful research using secondary sources (books, articles, videos and a little bit of Wikipedia). If there are any mistakes I apologise, and please let me know.
In the 1994 film, The Madness of King George, set in the late 1780s, a footman named Fortnum leaves in a huff to "set up a tea emporium". Actually Fortnum served Queen Anne, who reigned from 1702 to 1714.