Contexts and Departures: Global and Local

From their first appearance in mid-nineteenth century Paris and New York—the precise point of origin is disputed between the Le Bon Marché and Stewart’s Marble Palace—department stores have been seen as a revolutionary force that transformed retail practices, experiences of shopping, and the geography of main street or high street, helping to define the modern city and modern urban life. Both the stores and their owners were regarded as giants of retailing, financially and physically dominating the smaller shops around them. ^{Footnote 1} These leviathans fed off the burgeoning and increasingly wealthy populations of the great cities, especially the metropolises in the Northern Hemisphere. ^{Footnote 2} In retailing terms, they are seen as having been instrumental in the introduction and spread of fixed and ticketed prices; the open display and advertising of goods; the reorganization of business along modern, rational lines; rising levels of productivity; and a massively increased scale of spatial and financial organization. ^{Footnote 3} The sheer bulk and monumental architecture of these stores transformed the appearance of the high street because they remolded flows of people and goods through the urban space, and served as anchors around which retail geographies were formed and reformed. This was seen in the creation of the so-called Ladies Mile on Sixth Avenue, in New York City, and in the monumental scale of American and Parisian stores that embodied the “myth of a new order of commerce.” ^{Footnote 4} From the perspective of consumers, they opened up the possibility of browsing with new, unfettered access to goods; created a dream-world of goods linked to the contemporary craze for trade exhibitions; and produced gendered practices of shopping, not least by releasing women from the constraints placed on them when on the public street, a viewpoint that owes much to Zola’s Au Bonheur des Dames. Indeed, he argued that the “department store tends to replace the church. It marches to the religion of the cash desk, of beauty, of coquetry, and fashion. [Women] go there to pass the hours as they used to go to church: an occupation, a place of enthusiasm.” ^{Footnote 5}

This is the received wisdom about department stores. They were undoubtedly a phenomenon—perhaps the phenomenon of nineteenth century and early twentieth-century retailing—and thus merit much deeper and wider scrutiny than they have received. This means going beyond stores that are internationally famous to include the variety of formats, practices, and experiences that characterized provincial stores and, as Jeane Lawrence has urged, challenging the image of the department store as a dreamworld. ^{Footnote 6} Indeed, we should be wary of collapsing all department stores into a single model, influence, or experience, which continues to be all too common in the literature. ^{Footnote 7} Overseas visitors to London were very much aware of the differences between British stores and their French and American counterparts, and it would be wrong to assume that all British stores reflected London practices and experiences. As Helle Bertramsen observes, “in contrast to what many recent historians and sociologists have argued, there was nothing monolithic about the stores,” a sentiment that echoes Lawrence’s arguments about intraurban and interurban differences in the United States. ^{Footnote 8} Exploring how broader processes, practices, and experiences played out in provincial towns and stores provides the opportunity to test the transformative nature of department stores against a growing body of studies that suggest that many of the revolutionary features of department stores had been tried and tested in earlier times and more established retail formats. ^{Footnote 9}

This brings a number of challenges. One is the evidence base, which is fragmented and often limited for smaller provincial stores, encouraging store histories rather than systematic analysis. ^{Footnote 10} Another is the fundamental issue of definition. The universal providers in London and the grand magasins (large stores) in Paris were clearly department stores by any measure. Similarly, the flagship stores of provincial retailers, such as Lewis’s or Beatties, were conceived on a scale that puts their status beyond question. More problematic is the position of the more modest premises that characterized less prominent sites in large cities and the High Streets of smaller towns. What were their defining characteristics and what criteria can be deployed to differentiate them from other large shops that were not department stores? There is little agreement on how these questions might be answered. James Jefferys rested his definition on size and the range of goods sold, arguing that a department store was a “large retail store with four or more separate departments under one roof, each selling different classes of goods of which one is women’s and children’s wear”—the lines that were often most important in generating turnover, accounting for about 40 percent of sales in British department stores in the 1938. ^{Footnote 11} Nikolaus Pevsner and Gareth Shaw qualified this definition by emphasizing, respectively, the importance of scale and variety and the organization of activity—specifically, the presence of central operating functions such as an accounts department. ^{Footnote 12} In essence, such definitions follow contemporary ideas that are neatly, if somewhat dismissively, summed up by H. G. Wells: “One of those large, rather low-class establishments which sell everything from pianos and furniture to books and millinery—a department store.” ^{Footnote 13} However, there is a problem over the assumed clientele of department stores; as Peter Scott and James Walker argue, they were highly differentiated by the class of customer served and the quality of goods and service provided. ^{Footnote 14} Moreover, Thomas Markus moves beyond definitions based on size and variety to those focused on the spatial layout of the store, emphasizing the placement of counters and the movement of shoppers into and through the store; and Jan Whitaker highlights the grandeur of the store and the experiences of the customer, especially the freedom to browse open displays. ^{Footnote 15}

This confusion—coupled with the fact that, even in the 1930s, very few shops in Britain used the label “department store” to describe themselves—has served to further discourage systematic analyses of the development of department stores at the national level. ^{Footnote 16} Nevertheless, a more thorough understanding of the emergence and spread of department stores across the country are central to a proper assessment of their role in any retail revolution. This article unfolds in two halves.

I begin by presenting a national survey of department stores, mapping their changing distribution across England between the 1870s and 1930s. This is achieved via a systematic trawl of Kelly’s trade directories, which offer standardized national coverage throughout the study period. Local directories occasionally offer more detail, but their varied nature and patchy coverage (often omitting smaller towns) makes them less suited for national analysis. ^{Footnote 17} That said, Kelly’s is not without its problems, as Shaw and others have noted. ^{Footnote 18} The directories’ coverage is far from complete, although it was the smaller back-street shops that tended to be omitted rather than the substantial businesses with which this article is concerned. More problematic is the fact that Lancashire does not appear to have had a Kelly’s Directory for c.1930, and there are no obvious local alternatives; the county is therefore omitted from the analysis. Another challenge is the absence of “department store” as a category or descriptor in Kelly’s or other directories. For example, both Blackett’s in Sunderland and Knight & Lee Ltd. in Southsea occupied substantial premises and sold a range of goods, yet both were listed in the directories simply as “drapers.” This omission necessitates a close and nuanced reading of the listings. Drawing on Jeffreys’ definition (four or more distinct lines) and Shaw’s emphasis of scale of operation, I started with a “long list” of possible department stores based on the size of premises (normally three or more adjacent plot frontages) and the range of goods listed as being sold (at least four). This excluded multiple retailers selling a variety of wares (e.g., C&A and Marks and Spencer), but included co-operative central stores, many of which were operating as de facto department stores by the 1920s. Each shop identified in the initial trawl was exhaustively checked against newspaper advertisements and a range of secondary data sources, including oral histories available online. Only those stores for which corroborative evidence could be found were included as department stores; others were noted as “possible” department stores but not included in the main analysis. Thus, for example, Patrick’s Ltd. in Coventry—occupying 1-5a Much Park Street and 48-49 Jordan Well, and listed in Kelly’s as a milliner, draper, ladies outfitter, and furnishing store, and thus potentially a department store—was not included because no other source could be found confirming this status. Such businesses overlap with Jeffreys’ notion of a “part department store” (i.e., a shop with more than one department but not a full department store ^{Footnote 19} ), but also include many shops operating at a much larger scale than this simple definition would imply. Their omission means that estimates of department store numbers are conservative. Notwithstanding the danger of creating a teleological view that projects modernity back into earlier ages, I begin with the most recent date, when the identity of shops as department stores is most readily ascertained, and then I trace back a sample of these to establish earlier distributions and numbers, assessing the factors that shaped this changing geography.

In the second part of the paper, I turn to more qualitative sources to examine some of the retail and shopping practices that characterized department stores beyond the bright lights of metropolitan centers. Rather than business practices, this involves exploring the organization and layout of stores, and the experiences of consumers, all of which were important elements in distinguishing department stores from other shops. Here, I assess the extent to which provincial department stores formed a step-change from earlier retail and shopping practices.

Distribution Patterns in the 1930s

Evidence from the trade directories suggests that department stores were more widespread by the 1930s than previously believed. More than 500 shops across England have been definitely identified as department stores, from Wright and Son in Carlisle, to Chiesmans in Maidstone. This figure is at the top end of Jefferys’ estimate of 475 to 525 stores in 1938, ^{Footnote 20} yet this not only excludes Lancashire but also a similar number of “possible” department stores. Even if a small proportion of these stores were to be added, along with perhaps 50 stores in Lancashire, the overall number would rise to well over 600. Perhaps more striking, though, is their uneven distribution across the country, the main concentrations being found in greater London, the northeast, and the southeast. Far lower numbers were recorded in the East Midlands and along the Welsh border: Huntingdonshire contained only one department store, and Shropshire and Herefordshire had just two each (a sparsity that points to underrecording). To an extent, this pattern reflected demand in terms of population numbers, but mapping stores per capita reveals a rather more nuanced picture (Table 1). The concentration of provision in the Home Counties and the south stands out, with counties such as Berkshire and Hertfordshire having per capita provision twice the national average; in contrast, the absolute concentration in the northeast is dissipated.

Table 1

Distribution of provincial department stores in England, c.1932, by county*

Sources: Kelly’s Directory, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1936; 1931 census.

* Excludes Lancashire and London.

These disparities might be partly explained by the different nature of urban development in the two regions: an industrial north with a large proportion of poorer, working-class people, without the means to shop in department stores, contrasted with a more variegated south, containing new manufacturing towns, resorts, commuter settlements, and many smaller market towns. Such arguments effectively equate the distribution of department stores with that of the wealth and status of their customer base; that is, demand. This broad relationship is underscored by differences in wage and employment levels, a point emphasized by Scott and Walker. ^{Footnote 21} Those counties with above-average unemployment in the 1920s and 1930s were in the north and west of the country, while those with the lowest rates were in the Midlands and especially in the southeast. Average wages followed a similar pattern, both distributions being the product of industrial decline and a realignment of the economy to consumer industries. ^{Footnote 22}

Demand, in terms of the spending power of the local population, therefore, appears to have been a key determinant in the distribution of department stores in the interwar years. However, there are several problems with this simple north–south dichotomy. First, the caricature of the population of the industrial north as an undifferentiated proletarian mass is far too simplistic. Although unemployment undoubtedly hit hardest in the north, limiting local spending power, Lancaster argues that the lower-middle classes, which comprised the principal clientele of many department stores, were growing most rapidly in the industrial towns of the north during the early decades of the twentieth century. As early as 1910, white-collar workers, from clerks to school teachers, formed around 8 percent of the workforce in Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, and Hull, but just 2 percent to 3 percent in Wiltshire, Lincolnshire, and Buckinghamshire. ^{Footnote 23} At least on this measure, then, potential demand in northern cities easily exceeded that of some southern counties. The second problem is the large number of department stores in some of the places hit hardest by unemployment (including Durham and Northumberland) and, conversely, the poor provision in Midland counties, where there was generally less than one department store per one hundred thousand inhabitants (see Table 1). This paucity is at odds with the region’s relative economic buoyancy in the interwar period: unemployment rates were low and a number of local industries were developing rapidly, nurturing both a skilled manual workforce and a growing white-collar sector. Conditions would thus appear to have favored the emergence of department stores (like Lewis’s) serving working- and lower-middle-class customers, yet numbers remained modest. Lancaster notes that “Brummies seem to have preferred arcades to large stores,” a predilection that he puts down to the “small business culture of Birmingham.” ^{Footnote 24} Such arguments are both reductionist and misleading. On the one hand, Birmingham itself was quite well served, with at least seven department stores by 1930; ^{Footnote 25} on the other hand, Leicestershire, Derbyshire, and Staffordshire, which were similarly poorly supplied, each had different urban, economic, and social characteristics. This links to a third problem with a simple north–south divide: the considerable variation within regions. Thus, for example, Buckinghamshire and Essex were both poorly served in comparison with neighboring counties, while North Riding and Worcestershire were comparatively well supplied, as compared with their neighbors (see Table 1).

Regional distributions were strongly influenced by the presence of large towns. Places such as Newcastle, Sheffield, Leeds, Norwich, Portsmouth, and Brighton not only contained large numbers of stores but also several prestigious shops, which were of regional rather than simply local significance. In Newcastle, for example, Fenwick’s built on its reputation as a center of fashionable design in a store constructed along Parisian lines, while Manchester’s Kendal, Milne and Co. laid claim to being the largest department store outside of London. ^{Footnote 26} An important factor here was transport, which Pasdermadjian sees as fundamental to the emergence and spread of department stores. ^{Footnote 27} Crucial in the early twentieth century was the electric tram, which linked growing suburbs to city centers. In other work, I have demonstrated their importance in shaping the retail geography of Stoke-on-Trent; more specifically, Bainbridge’s in Newcastle boasted in 1912 that 2,500 trams passed its door each day. ^{Footnote 28}

It is no surprise, then, that the distribution of department stores mapped quite closely onto the urban hierarchy, at least at the upper end (Table 2). Although the precise ranking of towns varied, the biggest fifteen towns all featured among the top twenty-five in terms of department store provision. Below this, however, the relationship becomes less certain, with only two of the next ten biggest towns being prominent as centers of department store retailing.

Table 2

Town size and distribution of department stores in provincial England, c.1932: Top 25 towns*

Sources: See Table 1.

* Excludes Lancashire and London.

^† Italics = top 25 by provision.

Some smaller towns were surprisingly well served in terms of department stores. These were generally county towns or resorts, although by no means all such places fostered development to the same extent. Bournemouth stands out among the resorts as being particularly well served; it had seven shops that might be recognized as department stores, including Beale’s, Plummer Roddis, and Bobby & Co. Ltd. As Lancaster notes, the south coast developed a “necklace of department stores,” from Bobby’s in Margate, via Bennett’s in Weymouth, to Spooner’s in Plymouth, drawing on a clientele of well-to-do holidaymakers. ^{Footnote 29} However, his argument that department stores were integral to the development of such resorts is made problematic by the fact that they were fewer and rather less prominent in resorts on the east coast. Apart from Scarborough (with W. Boyes & Co., W. Rowntree & Sons Ltd., and its branch of Marshall & Snelgrove), seaside towns, from Skegness, to Cromer, and to Southend-on-Sea, appear to have had just one department store apiece. Similarly county towns such as Gloucester and Reading were well supplied, both in quantitative and qualitative terms: McIlroy’s Reading store was considered to be the largest department store in the south, outside of London. ^{Footnote 30} With county towns, however, the divide was not clearly drawn along geographical lines: Salisbury had just one definite department store and Chelmsford only two, whereas Carlisle contained several, most notably a branch of Binns that was, unusually, described in the 1934 directory as a “modern department store.” ^{Footnote 31} Moreover, some department stores in smaller centers attracted customers from a wide geographical area. Brown’s of Chester, for example, drew not only wealthy clientele from among the gentry and middle classes of rural Cheshire but also from the prosperous suburbs of the Wirral, which was well within the apparent hinterland of Liverpool stores. The attraction was partly Brown’s upscale image and partly the quintessential “Englishness” of the city, with its black-and-white timbered buildings and ancient rows. As one customer put it: “The ladies of the household of what were known as the Merchant Princes of Liverpool would prefer a shopping day involving a run in the car through the Wirral to the always ancient and interesting city of Chester, rather than to the ferry crossing of the River Mersey.” ^{Footnote 32} This again highlights the importance of transport to the development of the department store. Moreover, it challenges Pasdermadjian’s assertion that stores in smaller towns often struggled in the interwar years as they tried to serve all classes. Chester was not a small town, but neither was it a big city, and it thrived largely on the basis of its links to the surrounding countryside. Stores like Brown’s prospered by tapping into that hinterland, providing high levels of service, and perhaps maintaining an aura of exclusivity, points to which I return later.

Brown’s also highlights the balance between competition and complementarity in department store provision. Market areas could overlap considerably, partly by stores serving a different clientele and partly because customers might patronize different stores according to the goods being sought and the particular occasion. Brown’s might offer an attractive excursion, but Liverpool’s department stores picked up much of the regular business of the wealthy and geographically mobile residents of the Wirral. The ways in which it was in competition with other Chester shops shifted over time as it increasingly sought out what its then-chairman called “the C class of customer”: artisan and lower-middle-class groups that usually shopped in multiples, independent stores, and perhaps even at the market. ^{Footnote 33} Brown’s took some, but by no means all, of their custom, a reminder that the same people could buy from department stores and multiples; class did not determine shopping behavior. On a broader scale, there is little evidence of a shadow around larger cities, even London; if anything, there appears to have been a positive influence, both in suburbs such as Kingston and Croydon and further afield such as in Hertfordshire and Berkshire, with their high department-store-to-population ratio.

In contrast to the importance of relatively small towns like Chester, some large centers appear to have been poorly provided for in terms of department stores. Of those appearing in Table 2, Coventry, Birkenhead, Wolverhampton, Ilford, Gateshead, and Stockport stand out. Each had just one definite department store, that in Stockport being the Co-operative Central Store on Chestergate. To this list might be added a string of other industrial towns: Barnsley, Chesterfield, Dewsbury, and Burton-on-Trent all had populations of fifty thousand or more, yet in none can a department store be positively identified (although all contain “possible” stores). Such “underserved” towns were not evenly spread across the country; rather, they were concentrated into the Midlands and north. As Table 3 shows, per capita provision was much lower in northern than in southern towns, with well over one-third of towns in the Midlands and north falling into the lowest quintile of provision per capita, while only one-tenth were in the highest quintile. In contrast, the figures for southern towns were one-tenth and one-quarter, respectively. The residents of southern England were clearly much better provided in terms of department stores than their cousins in the north. This may have been due to the traditional strength of co-operative retailing in these places or the continued attraction of the market hall, which was more pronounced in the north and west. However, one should be cautious about such supply-led explanations: the different nature of urban development also played a role. By their very nature, large industrial towns might have a relatively large number of department stores but only a low provision per capita. This is clearly the case in Leeds, Bradford, Hull, and Sheffield, each of which had at least five department stores but ratios of less than one store per fifty thousand inhabitants. There is a stark contrast between these and the small market towns in the south: a single department store in Harpenden (Anscombe & Sons Ltd.), Minehead (Floyd & Sons), and Devizes (Charles Sloper & Sons) could mean ratios as low as one store per three thousand residents. Of course, these were very different shops from the likes of Schofield’s in Leeds, Brown Muff & Co.in Bradford, or the Co-op City Stores in Sheffield. They were much smaller businesses, both in terms of turnover and premises, and formed the type of store that Scott and Walker suggest suffered from much lower levels of productivity and profitability in the 1930s. ^{Footnote 34} They were, nonetheless, department stores of a kind, a point that underlines Bertramsen’s warning that a department store should not be viewed as a monolithic type. ^{Footnote 35} However, town size and type were clearly not the only explanations for variations in provision per capita; the shopping habits of the local population were also important. ^{Footnote 36} Indeed, it is notable that industrial towns in the northeast appear to have had a greater tradition of department stores than those in Yorkshire. Certainly, their ratio of customers-to-store was two or three times lower. Such differences require us to look deeper into the origins and development of department stores in different parts of the country.

Table 3

Per capita distribution of department stores by town, c.1932 (in percentages)*

Sources: See Table 1.

* Excludes Lancashire and London.

For allocation of counties to regions, see Table 1.

The Changing Distribution of Department Stores

Tracing the provincial department stores identified for the 1930s back through the trade directories reveals much about their changing numbers and distribution. A sample of 23 counties, chosen to provide a broad geographical spread and incorporating some 213 department stores in the 1930s, shows that all but 13 were trading in some capacity in the 1910s. Some appear to have changed little in the scale and nature of their trading between the two dates. For example, Heelas, Sons & Co. Ltd. in Reading was described as a “drapers, outfitters, complete house furnishers, house agents & auctioneers,” both in the 1915 and 1931 Kelly’s Directory, and it occupied the same plot on Broad Street. Similarly, Binns in Sunderland was already in possession of its Fawcett Street premises in 1914, although it was listed simply as “drapers” rather than the more expansive “H. Binns, Son & Co. Ltd. for everything; funerals furnished, night service; motor showrooms; drapers,” which appeared in the 1934 directory. ^{Footnote 37} Most stores, however, were in smaller or different premises, operated simpler business arrangements, and appeared to offer a rather narrower range of goods in the 1910s.

The gradual expansion of many stores makes it difficult to judge at what point they might be regarded as department stores. When had a draper’s shop, for example, developed sufficiently in terms of stock range, business organization, and scale of operation to cross the threshold? Some, like Evans & Owen in Bath, Brown Muff & Co. in Bradford, and Lilley’s in Cambridge had clearly been operating as department stores for many decades. Others were established ab initio as department stores in the early twentieth century, a process that might be seen as the tail end of what Shaw terms the “revolutionary” phase of department store development, the early stages in the establishment of modern department store chains, or the result of a consolidation of co-operative trading into a central store. ^{Footnote 38} With most emerging department stores, however, things are less certain, especially when corroborative evidence is less clear-cut. With that proviso in mind, adopting a similar methodology to that used to identify stores in the early 1930s indicates that perhaps 60 percent of the sample shops were operating as department stores by this date. ^{Footnote 39} Extrapolating this figure for the country as a whole suggests that there might have been about 300 department stores at this date, a total well in excess of Jefferys’ estimated 175 to 225. ^{Footnote 40} If correct, this places greater emphasis on the late nineteenth century rather than the early twentieth century as a period of rapid growth in department store numbers. Indeed, this makes considerable sense; given the uncertain times faced by many department stores in the 1920s, it seems unlikely that they would have almost trebled in number in the twenty years after 1914. ^{Footnote 41}

Department stores were not only more numerous at this earlier date; they were also spread widely across the country (Table 4). Figures for individual counties varied quite markedly. In Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, and Derbyshire, the admittedly small number of department stores recorded in 1932 had already been trading as such by about 1912. In contrast, well over half of those in Berkshire, Cumberland, and Lincolnshire only made the jump to department store trading after 1912. These differences were not systematic in any socio-economic or regional sense. There were similar proportions in southern counties with large numbers of resort-town department stores (for example, Sussex); in northern counties with concentrations of industrial towns (Durham and Northumberland); and in predominantly rural counties, with a scattering of market and commuter towns (Somerset and Hertfordshire). Moreover, the regional pattern showed considerable stability. This suggests that the underlying factors determining the distribution of department stores changed relatively little in the early twentieth century, reflecting the way in which different types of stores were emerging in different places to serve the local clientele. Thus, Brown Muff & Co. in Bradford, like Brown’s of Chester, catered to the bourgeois taste of the county and industrial elite; Beales in Bournemouth attracted well-to-do holidaymakers; Fenwick’s in Newcastle sold to a wide range of customers, from the upper to the working classes; and Shepherd’s in Gateshead actively sought out working-class customers through a network of neighborhood agents. ^{Footnote 42} Again, it is clear that provincial department stores were far from being a monolithic type and that a variety of business models could prove successful.

Table 4

Proportion of stores from c.1932 already trading as department stores in c.1912 (selected counties)*

Source: Kelly’s Directory, 1911, 1912, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1936.

* Excludes Lancashire and London.

This diversity was underpinned by the growth of co-operative central stores. Co-ops invariably had numerous branches scattered across town, but in many places they also established central emporia, which amounted to de facto department stores selling a wide range of goods. Lancaster argues that many city center co-operatives retained a system of separate units. Sometimes, as in Leicester, it was behind a single façade, reflecting, in part, a mistrust of the frivolous and wasteful consumption seen as characterizing department stores. However, the early twentieth century saw two important developments that shifted co-operative societies firmly into department store retailing. First was the growth of new purpose-built premises for these central stores, which often consciously mirrored styles used in department stores. That of the Gateshead Industrial Co-operative Society (1925–1926) had echoes of Selfridges’ Oxford Street store, while the central store of the Newcastle Co-operative Society Limited (built in 1929) was a fine example of art deco design. ^{Footnote 43} Second, there was a shift in attitudes to modes of shopping. Advertising the opening of its new “Arcadia” in 1928, Ashton-under-Lyne Co-operative Society proudly announced that “All your shopping can now be done under one roof in the atmosphere of an Exhibition building.” ^{Footnote 44} Such stores were especially common in industrial districts—there were at least ten co-op “department stores” in the West Riding and five in County Durham by 1930—but they were also an important aspect of the department store sector outside such areas. The Central Store of Lincoln Co-operative Society operated as a proto-department store from its construction in 1873, although it retained the typical internal divisions into the twentieth century. In Chester, the central store offered the usual range of goods—here within a single unit—and included a café on the first floor.

Tracing stores further back into the nineteenth century, the status of individual shops becomes even more difficult to judge outside the well-documented and probably atypical big stores. Shaw’s sample of west Midland towns reveals just five department stores and eleven “part department stores” in 1870, rising to twenty-five and thirty-seven, respectively, by 1910. ^{Footnote 45} Expressed differently, this meant that about one-fifth of the department stores found in 1910 were trading in this capacity forty years earlier. Such growth, he argued, mirrored that in London, with only a short time lag. Taking a small sample of different types and sizes of town from across the country allows for an extrapolation of Shaw’s findings spatially (Table 5) and suggests that as many as half of those identified in the 1930s were already department stores in the 1890s. Even if this is an overestimate, it appears that the period 1870 to 1890 was crucial in the emergence of provincial department stores, a suggestion borne out by the experience of larger stores: John Walsh, Fenwick’s, Brown Muff & Co., Beale’s, Lewis’s, and Owen Owen, among many others, all trace their origins as department stores to the 1870s and 1880s, the revolutionary phase of Shaw’s two-stage model. ^{Footnote 46} In his sample, it was large or fashionable towns that led the way, drawing on demand from the expanding industrial bourgeoisie and respectable working classes, on the one hand, and from a wealthy leisured class, on the other. This suggestion certainly fits well with broader understandings of the segmented clientele of department stores, but, as the data presented in Table 5 indicate, early department store development was most apparent in larger towns, regardless of their location or economic function. Sunderland and Brighton stand out, despite being very different kinds of town, while the provision of department stores in Leamington Spa is very much in line with that in Carlisle, despite their contrasting socio-economic characteristics and very different hinterlands. All these are distinct from the small market or industrial towns—such as Newark, Northwich, and Devizes—where department stores came later and were much fewer in number.

Table 5

The number of department stores in selected towns, c.1892–1932

Source: Kelly’s Directory, 1892, 1911, 1912, 1931, 1932, 1934.

The street numbers for Bratt & Evans in Northwich were not given in the trade directories. The range of stores for Brighton and Carlisle in 1892 and Hanley and Northwich in 1912 reflects uncertainty over the status of particular shops as department stores at these dates.

Added to this is the different magnitude of the stores in these various towns. Store frontage is a crude measure of size and is subject to variables such as the plot width (in Carlisle, for example, the narrow plots tended to exaggerate somewhat the size of its stores, although Binn’s, Bullough’s and the Co-operative Central Store all occupied substantial premises), but it offers the opportunity to compare stores across time and space. Unsurprisingly, almost all department stores in the sample grew considerably in size, roughly doubling their mean frontage between the 1890s and 1930s (see Table 5). That said, stores were noticeably bigger in larger centers, particularly by the early twentieth century. By the 1930s, William Hill in Hove had premises stretching from 48-61 Western Road, while Blackett & Sons in Sunderland occupied 241-246 High Street West as well as the substantial Blackett’s Buildings on adjoining Union Street. In contrast, the premises of Bobby’s, on the corner of The Parade and Bedford Street in Leamington Spa, were just six frontages wide; those of Brown’s of Chester were smaller still, despite the prestigious nature of the store, although it did trade over three floors.

All this suggests that department stores came earlier and were generally larger in the bigger towns, as might be expected. However, it would be a mistake to assume that, as an innovatory retail form, they spread hierarchically from larger to smaller towns. Their appearance in many small county and industrial towns reflected largely endogenous and organic growth, with most department stores emerging from preexisting businesses that gradually expanded their lines of business and their premises. The creation of ab initio stores usually took the form of a new co-operative central store (although, even here, societies were already trading in the town) or a branch of an existing store elsewhere. Lewis’s was one of the first stores to do this, opening branches the 1880s in Manchester, Birmingham, and, less successfully, Sheffield to cater to the growing demand from an increasingly well-paid urban workforce. ^{Footnote 47} A decade later, Bobby’s was spreading along the south coast, taking advantage of the market provided by holidaymakers by opening stores in a number of seaside resorts. By the early twentieth century, Doggarts, Binns, and Robinsons, in northeast England; McIlroys in the south; Featherstones in Kent; and Plummer Roddis on the south coast were also establishing regional networks, including stores in both large and small towns (Table 6). These were genuine networks, reflecting the organic growth of regional companies rather than the predatory programs of acquisition undertaken by Selfridges, the Drapery, General Investment Trust, and, later, Debenhams, John Lewis, and United Drapery Stores. ^{Footnote 48} That said, the opening of a branch store did not necessarily mean a new department store was created. Lewis’s constructed new stores but, later, networks were constructed through a mixture of new stores and takeovers: Bobby’s built stores in Torquay and Bournemouth but took over Green & Son in Exeter; ^{Footnote 49} Binn’s usual policy was to open new stores, but in Carlisle the company bought out the established department store Robinson Bros. Ltd., which boasted in a 1914 advertisement not only that it sold “everything to wear” and “everything for the home” but also that it had an “electric lift to all floors.” ^{Footnote 50}

Table 6

Department stores chains, c.1932

Source: Kelly’s Directory, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1936.

Plots, Premises, and Fittings

These takeovers were not simply a question of replacing one owner with another. Binn’s took the opportunity to buy not just Robinson’s premises in Carlisle (30-40 English Street) but also those of two neighboring businesses: the drapers Martindale & Sons (at numbers 24-26) and a temperance hotel (number 22). The plot was thus considerably enlarged, and with it the scope for expanding the business and rebuilding the premises. Such growth was typical of department stores in the early twentieth century. Systematic analysis is beyond the scope of this article, but it is striking that more than half of the 213 stores in the sample significantly enlarged their premises between the 1910s and the 1930s, and, in doing so, literally built on the trend of previous decades. For example, in Hanley, the principal town in the Potteries region of north Staffordshire, Bratt & Dyke expanded from a double-fronted shop at 49-51 Stafford Street in 1892 to a substantial corner plot occupying 53-55 Stafford Street and 1-17 Trinity Street by 1912. ^{Footnote 51} The attraction of such enlargement was twofold. First, it produced a plot large enough for the store to stock a wider range of goods and to organize these into separate departments, a structure that was emphasized in many advertisements placed by department stores in the early twentieth century. This could be achieved with minimal internal changes; indeed, Whiteley’s in London famously comprised a series of distinct shops, interlinked by a series of connecting doors and corridors. Similarly, the gradual growth of Brown’s of Chester, coupled with the physical restrictions imposed by the rows, resulted in an interior comprising a series of disjointed and confusing spaces. ^{Footnote 52}

Assembling a consolidated block of buildings also allowed comprehensive redevelopment to take place. Shaw carefully traced this process for Beattie’s in Wolverhampton, and Morrison has done the same for the co-op in Lincoln; but it was repeated up and down the country, sometimes facilitated by local authority street improvement schemes, as was the case for Kendal Milne in Manchester and Brown Muff & Co. in Bradford. ^{Footnote 53} The result was the construction of some impressive buildings, often the largest and most striking in the city center. These range from the seven-story, seventeen-bay neo-baroque pile built for John Walsh’s in Sheffield; to the so-called crystal palace of McIlroy’s in Reading, with its continuous glass wall on the lower two floors; and to the art deco splendor of Roddis House in Bournemouth. ^{Footnote 54} Nevertheless, looking across the full set of provincial department stores, it is clear that such monumental building programs were exceptional; most provincial department stores had solid premises on quite modest sites, which was more in keeping with their surroundings and in tune with their clientele. In Chester, Brown’s four-plot frontage was an assortment of different architectural designs, including neo-classical, neo-gothic, and black and white revival. ^{Footnote 55} Even where rebuilding did occur, it was usually quite restrained. Brookfield’s in Stafford redeveloped its corner plot around 1890, and remodeled the exterior with a unifying façade built onto both Greengate Street and St. Mary’s Gate, but its scale and design ensured a balanced streetscape rather than overshadowing its neighbors. Much the same was true of Bratt & Dyke’s new corner building in Hanley, opened in 1897, and known as “The Central.” It was impressive but not overbearing and included three prominent gables carrying the building’s name, its date of construction, and heraldic imagery. ^{Footnote 56}

The buildings and internal arrangement of department stores reflected their scale of operation and functional organization; that is, large-scale businesses subdivided into a series of distinct and often separately accounted departments selling different lines of goods. Like their metropolitan counterparts, the largest provincial stores matched a monumental exterior with grand and elegant interiors. Few, if any, could match the drama of the domed atria and luxurious use of materials and decorative detail seen in metropolitan stores. ^{Footnote 57} Provincial stores, however, still deployed many of the same features: Wylie and Lochead in Glasgow and Lewis’s in Birmingham had broad sweeping staircases to their galleried upper showrooms; others, like Brown Muff & Co. in Bradford, had elegant columned showrooms; while a little later many purpose-built co-operative society central stores, including those in Newcastle and Sheffield, had impressive art deco interiors. ^{Footnote 58} It seems that even an essentially working-class clientele needed to be impressed, not only by the size but also the quality of the department store; many of the fittings in the Brightside and Carbrook’s Co-operative Society’s City Store in Sheffield were made of walnut and boxwood, and the stairs were of marble terrazzo. ^{Footnote 59}

The impression of the provincial department store given by these impressive interiors is tempered by two considerations. First, many of these features were not new: Clare Walsh makes clear that many of the higher-class shops of eighteenth-century London were introducing larger premises, lit by atria as they stretched further back from the street front and included various showrooms; by the second quarter of the nineteenth century, most provincial towns had a number of substantial emporia selling drapery, china, glassware, or furniture from elegant showrooms. ^{Footnote 60} Second, and conversely, many provincial department stores were simply too small to afford, accommodate, or require these grand statements and spaces. In Stafford, Brookfield’s new interior included a series of discrete departments for furnishings, millinery, drapery, and clothing, as well as a tearoom, but all were modest in size and decoration. Similarly, the various showrooms of Woodward’s in Leamington Spa were small and simply decorated, while the Empire Trading Stamp Co. Ltd. in Sheffield comprised a series of incredibly cramped rooms at 19-23 Howard Street. Images survive of thirteen different departments, from carpet and lino, through enamelware, to ladies and children’s outfitting, plus a central accounting office; this was indubitably a department store. ^{Footnote 61}

What characterized all these stores, large and small, was a separation of different categories of goods into distinct departments. In larger stores, each department had a separate manager, and it was increasingly common for accounts to distinguish each department, allowing storeowners to track the relative turnover of different lines and departments. For example, Broadbent’s in Southport grew its business from £18,218 in 1892–1893 to £27,570 in 1900–1901, with perfumes and patent medicines accounting for around £2,900 of this turnover. ^{Footnote 62} The accounts of Cockayne’s in Sheffield, meanwhile, showed gross profits from a total of twenty-eight departments by 1914. ^{Footnote 63} From the customers’ perspective, these departments were generally encountered as a series of spatially distinct units assembled under one roof. In each unit, the goods were displayed using a growing variety of techniques, many of them common to all department stores, but most with deep roots in earlier retail formats. Whitaker’s argument that “one of the biggest, most fundamental revolutions brought about by department stores had less to do with how they displayed merchandise than with the fact that they displayed it” reveals much about the myopic view that bedevils studies of department stores. ^{Footnote 64} It ignores the large and growing body of research that demonstrates how English retailers in the eighteenth century were engaged in a whole range of techniques, and deployed a variety of shop fittings to display their wares to customers. ^{Footnote 65} Glass display cabinets were featured in numerous eighteenth-century trade cards and inventories, and their deployment was considerably extended in department stores, with provincial shops often following a metropolitan lead. Both as part of counters and as islands on the shop floor, they helped to highlight the allure of goods by placing them close to the shopper and yet still tantalizingly out of reach. ^{Footnote 66} Typically, glass counters were filled with smallwares, gloves, perfumes, jewelry, and the like, all neatly arranged in piles and rows to create striking yet orderly displays; those on the shop floor contained larger and more delicate items such as hats. Both of these can be seen in the drapery and millinery showrooms of Brookfield’s (c.1910) and in many departments of the larger Co-op City Stores in Sheffield (1929). ^{Footnote 67}

Rather slower to spread to smaller stores was a genuinely new display technique: the use of mannequins. In their original headless form, these were used in the 1890s by Jolly & Son Ltd. in Bath to display bridal gowns, and were used a little later in the ladies’ costume department in Brown Muff & Co. in Bradford and in Mason & Sons Ltd. in Ipswich, at least when setting out clothes for the camera. ^{Footnote 68} They were found in smaller stores, such as E. Francis & Sons in Leamington Spa, by the early twentieth century, but again most often as headless figures—more like a tailor’s dummy. ^{Footnote 69} More lifelike mannequins, of the kind extensively deployed in metropolitan department stores from the 1910s, appear to have been slower to spread to smaller stores, most likely because of the cost involved. By the 1930s, however, mannequins had penetrated even the somewhat more plebian stores, such as the Empire Trading Stamp Co. Ltd., while upper-class stores were building special mannequin display stands to create tableaus. ^{Footnote 70}

Much more common in smaller stores was the flipside of these elegant displays: a piling of goods on every available surface to create an image that Whitaker calls “orderly profusion.” ^{Footnote 71} Such an approach caused some consternation to American visitors who were warned in one guidebook not to be alarmed by finding “things are so strewed about and piled up and hung up that it requires a ‘seeing eye’ to pick out the good from the bad.” ^{Footnote 72} However, such profusion characterized the shop floors of fashionable Parisian stores such as Printemps, as well as the drapery and furniture departments of provincial shops like Brookfield’s, Francis & Sons, and Bratt & Dyke. This resulted partly from the pressure to maximize sales from every square foot of floor space and partly from a desire to create a visually striking display of goods that emphasized choice; but it also linked to the crowded space of the Victorian and Edwardian parlor: the cornucopia of the shop echoing that of the home. ^{Footnote 73}

Perhaps the most striking feature of the selling spaces of London and provincial department stores, and one that linked them closely to preceding centuries of retail practice, was the persistence of the counter. While much is made of the department store’s importance in giving shoppers unmediated access to consumer goods, the counter and its concomitant sales assistant remained central to the structure and operation of department stores well into the twentieth century. This apparent contradiction owes something to the rhetoric of self-aggrandizing owners such as Gordon Selfridge and something to the mistaken belief that the removal of partition walls and tall cabinets and the introduction of open plan interiors meant the removal of counters. Indeed, when the counters were ripped out of Whiteley’s in the 1950s, there was such a protest from customers that the store was forced to abandon the plan. ^{Footnote 74} The kind of open access to goods championed by American department stores was used by Lewis in his Manchester store, opened in 1880; instead of counters, there were boxes from which customers could help themselves to goods. He claimed that this was unique in Britain at that time, but as Briggs argues, the practice harked back to the earlier bazaars. ^{Footnote 75} Moreover, counter service remained important in many departments in Lewis’s, despite the retailer’s emphasis on serving the lower-middle and working classes. In many smaller stores, it persisted much longer. At the Empire Trading Stamp Co. Ltd. in the 1930s, all the departments included counters and chairs where customers sat while being served; they were surrounded by goods piled on shelves, and on the floor, and even hung from the ceiling, yet their focus was on the counter and the shop assistant. Such arrangements were perhaps unusual and may reflect the particular modus operandi of this shop, which appears to have sold goods at least in part through catalogues. Its cramped spaces strongly challenge our image of department stores; they were a world away from the dream-world of Parisian stores, and even the elegant showrooms of John Walsh and the modernity of the Brightside and Carbrook Co-operative Society’s City Stores, both just a few streets away. While extreme, however, the Empire Trading Stamp Co. Ltd. was perhaps not so different from department stores across the country; seats were provided for customers in most departments of the Co-op City Stores in Sheffield into the 1930s, as they were at Kendal Milne, the foremost department store in Manchester. As late as the 1950s, the drapery and fashion accessories departments of Bratt & Dyke in Hanley retained seats for customers and counters from which they were served. ^{Footnote 76}

There was a similar tension between traditional and innovative approaches in the use of window displays and street frontages. Again, it is important to be wary of the hyperbole surrounding the dramatic changes wrought by department stores, especially those away from metropolitan centers, because shopkeepers had displayed goods in glazed windows from the early eighteenth century. However, the easier availability and falling price of plate glass, added to an increasing willingness of passers-by to look at shop windows, placed greater emphasis on the window as a key way of attracting people into the shop. ^{Footnote 77} Even away from the bright lights of London, these encouraged the remodeling of shop fronts to maximize display space and draw the gaze of the passerby. The modest double frontage of Charles Sloper’s in Devizes, Wiltshire, was modernized in 1929 to incorporate a recessed area on the ground floor, which allowed window-shoppers to browse under cover; a glazed display cabinet protruding onto the pavement; and a solid wall of windows on the first floor designed not only to illuminate the showrooms behind them but also display wares to those passing in omnibuses. ^{Footnote 78} In Middlesbrough, Dickson & Benson took this further with what it advertised as “the Arcade Store”: a series of recessed fronts that ran the entire length of their premises on Linthorpe Road. The displays mounted in such windows varied considerably, but surviving images suggest that most provincial department stores retained a fairly traditional approach to window dressing through to the 1930s at least. This generally meant a window crowded with goods, albeit sometimes artfully arranged. In the 1920s, E. Francis & Sons in Leamington Spa dedicated a window to Jaeger wear, filling the space with corsets, petticoats, vests, dressing gowns, and such; some were draped and others placed on headless mannequins. Notices attached to the windows declared fixed prices, a surprising indication that customers might still need reminding of such things at this late date. In other windows, hats were hung from the ceiling and lacework, feather boas, and hosiery were draped over poles; price tickets were attached to most of these goods. A decade later, Woodwards, a neighboring store, was still happy to cram its double-window on the Parade with a display of Wolsey underwear, mixing images of Cardinal Wolsey with piles of socks, draped vests, and long johns, with price tickets. ^{Footnote 79} Again, these seem to occupy a separate world from the highly stylized and professionally dressed windows of Selfridges or Harrods, but they appear to have typified provincial window displays until the postwar period. Only rarely was a more restrained or stylized approach adopted, as at Heelas in Reading, where a 1934 window display contained just eight full or half mannequins dressed in the latest fashions. ^{Footnote 80} Significantly, co-operative societies were among the more imaginative when it came to window dressing, with central stores adopting metropolitan approaches. In Sheffield, one window displayed a small selection of fabrics draped around a central mannequin, and another presented women’s shoes against an abstract starburst backdrop. ^{Footnote 81}

Keeping the Customer Satisfied

It is easy to overemphasize the distinction between the metropolitan and provincial worlds; for all their sophistication, major stores clung to what seems like remarkably old-fashioned forms of selling. In Paris, the elegance and sophistication of the interiors and window displays of Printemps, Le Bon Marché, and Samaritaine were juxtaposed and, in some respects, compromised by the presence around their main entrances of open stalls selling hats, umbrellas, ties, and a range of textiles. ^{Footnote 82} Conversely, the roof gardens and playgrounds, balloon launches and circus acts, reading rooms and concerts that characterized the great metropolitan stores found their reflection in similar attractions put on by provincial department stores, often drawing on the practices of earlier bazaars. From 1913, Brown’s of Chester held fashion shows featuring French models as well as French gowns. In the interwar years, Buntings in Norwich advertised that its “orchestral trio plays daily from 12 to 6 p.m.,” while Bobby’s in Bournemouth hired music hall acts to appear at coffee mornings and teatime. In common with many stores, local rival Beale’s hosted Father Christmas, rather dramatically having him arrive by airplane. In Kingston, Bentall’s had a Palm Court Orchestra, regular mannequin parades and bonny baby competitions; each year it displayed the flowers from the Royal Box at Ascot and held a circus for the children at Christmas; it also exhibited Donald Campbell’s Bluebird car, and hired a Swedish girl who climbed a ladder to the top of the central well before diving twenty meters into a tank of water. ^{Footnote 83}

More prosaically, but far more important on a day-to-day basis, many provincial stores incorporated restrooms and tearooms. The former were seen as important additions to London stores in the 1870s, since a “Day’s Shopping is one of the most agreeable occupations a Lady can devise, but pleasure is toil without agreeable relaxation and rest.” Moreover, it was argued that their absence might cut into profits because “sheer weariness, the necessity of rest, and the desire to arrange the toilet not infrequently shorten the visit.” ^{Footnote 84} Tearooms, meanwhile, became a fixture even in smaller stores and co-operative central stores; for example, there were three separate tearooms, plus a private dining room, at the Co-op City Stores in Sheffield. Unsurprisingly, the rooms in small provincial stores such as Brookfield’s could not match the elegance of Liberty’s Moorish restaurant or even the art nouveau rooms at Mawer & Collingham in Lincoln, but they still served the need for refreshment and offered a potential meeting place. Indeed, the possibility of tearooms, and the department store more generally, being a place of rendezvous was highlighted in an advertisement run by Bainbridge’s in Newcastle in the early twentieth century, which took the opportunity to highlight several of the store’s departments:

This emphasis on customer experience is significant as it was central to the efforts of department stores, especially those in the provinces, to distinguish themselves from a growing array of chain stores that threatened to draw away much of their business. Customer service, as well as competitive prices on a wide range of goods, was an important part of the attraction of department stores, particularly, but not only, those targeting middle-class customers. Having facilities such as tearooms and restrooms was part of the answer, as was the kind of elaborate entertainments laid on by Bentall’s, which enjoyed record profits and built a new store despite the difficult trading conditions of the 1930s. ^{Footnote 86} More important, however, was the need to make the customer feel welcome and free to wander around the store, a central tenet of the department store, if not the revolutionary change in retail practice that it is often portrayed as being. Concerns were raised in the trade press and elsewhere about the Parisian system of walk-around stores, not least because of the moral threat it posed to female customers, the danger of shoplifting, and the risk of male customers becoming overly familiar with female assistants; ^{Footnote 87} however, there was also a growing fascination with American techniques of store organization, which was predicated on the free movement of customers.

A widespread criticism of upscale British stores, especially among visitors from the United States, was the use of floorwalkers. Ideally, these employees would make the middle-class customer feel welcome at the front door and escort them politely among departments. Such practices were anathema to American shoppers, who complained that this restricted browsing and that “you are made to feel uncomfortable if you do not buy.” ^{Footnote 88} It was also inappropriate in those provincial stores in which the core clientele was drawn from the lower-middle and working classes. There was clearly a strong perception that stores did not encourage browsing; even without floorwalkers, pushy assistants would badger customers into buying and were encouraged to promote slow-moving lines. Numerous provincial department stores advertised their openness to casual shoppers; Robinson’s in Carlisle, for example, declared in a 1914 advertisement that not only was it “the store that gives ‘The most of the best for the least money’—always” but also that “visitors are cordially invited to walk around.” ^{Footnote 89} A few years earlier, Fenwick’s in Newcastle had announced “a welcome to customers to walk around the store. Assistants are not allowed to speak to visitors. Walk around today, don’t buy. There is time for that another day.” ^{Footnote 90} This freedom of movement was clearly popular—customer numbers grew from 295 to more than 3,000 per day in just a year—perhaps because it tapped into established practices of browsing in bazaars, arcades, and market halls. However, the “silent assistant” was not taken up in many other stores, sometimes because of reticence or prejudice among senior staff. The 1940s Mass Observation study of Brown’s of Chester found that one floorwalker was willing to accept the “best artisan type,” but hoped that “we’ll never go down to the lowest.” The restaurant manager was even less certain, worried about the tendency of working-class people to “eat with their knives.” Some customers were also worried about a potential move down-market, one complaining, “Nowadays, you meet the people from the back streets there”; others still saw it as exclusive, maintaining, “I never go to Browns, I leave that to the toffs.” ^{Footnote 91}

For all this, Brown’s was clearly a place in transition and, for a growing number of working-class women, it was a place to go, especially if a particular item was required. One woman noted:

The last phrase is quite striking and reveals that, even in the 1940s, there was a lingering feeling that department stores were not places where you could wander freely. Nonetheless, Mass Observation recorded that 60 percent of Brown’s customers were from the artisan class and 11 percent from the unskilled working class; the report also observed that women from socio-economic class C “now wander about as if they own the place.” ^{Footnote 93} This does not mean that these customers did all or most of their shopping at Brown’s, but it is a reminder that shopping behavior was contingent on many things, including product and occasion. The respondent quoted above particularly mentioned buying blouses and material for dresses; equally, Kendal’s in Manchester might have been too exclusive for every day but could still be a place to buy Christmas presents.