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Cathedrals of Consumption? Provincial Department Stores in England, c.1880–1930

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2017

JON STOBART*
Affiliation:
Jon Stobart is professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University. His research interests center on the histories of retailing and consumption, and their relationship with material culture and with the production and influence of space. From an initial focus on urban environments, his recent work has explored these issues in the context of the country house and the rural shop. E-mail: J.Stobart@mmu.ac.uk

Abstract

The department store is often seen as a revolutionary force: transforming retail practices, shopping experiences, and the high street. It is variously lauded for its role in the democratization of luxury, the introduction of price ticketing and unfettered browsing, and the creation of a fantasy world of goods. As is so often the case, reality is more complex than the image, especially when we move away from the bright lights of the metropolis and start exploring the high streets of provincial towns. Based on a thorough trawl of trade directories, I explore the regional distribution of stores in their 1930s heyday and examine how this distribution developed over time, pushing the discussion back to consider the varied origins of provincial department stores. I then turn to the spatial organization, selling practices, and shopping experience of small samples of stores, questioning the extent to which they formed a monolithic retail type.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2017. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved. 

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References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Bowlby, Rachel. Just Looking: Consumer Culture in Dreiser, Gissing and Zola. London: Routledge, 1985.Google Scholar
Briggs, Asa. Friends of the People: The Centenary History of Lewis’s. London: Batsford, 1956.Google Scholar
Cohen, Deborah. Household Gods: The British and their Possessions. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Corina, Maurice. Fine Silks and Oak Counters: Debenhams, 1778–1978. London: Hutchinson, 1978.Google Scholar
Cox, Nancy. The Complete Tradesman: A Study of Retailing, 1550–1820. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2000.Google Scholar
Honeycombe, Gordon. Selfridges: Seventy-Five Years: The Story of the Store, 1909–1983. London: Selfridges Ltd., 1984.Google Scholar
Jefferys, James. Retail Trading in Britain, 1850–1950. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954.Google Scholar
Kindred, David. Ipswich: A Second Selection. Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing, 1993.Google Scholar
Lancaster, Bill. The Department Store: A Social History, Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
MacKeith, Margaret. Shopping Arcades: A Gazetteer of Extant British Arcades, 1817–1939, London: Mansell Publishing, 1985.Google Scholar
Markus, Thomas. Buildings and Power. London: Routledge, 1993.Google Scholar
Mass Observation, and Whitlock, H. D.. Brown’s of Chester: A Portrait of a Shop, 1780–1946. London: L. Drummond, 1947.Google Scholar
Miller, Michael. The Bon Marché: Bourgeois Culture and the Department Store, 1869–1920, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Ian. Tradition and Innovation in English Retailing, 1700 to 1850. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014.Google Scholar
Morrison, Kathryn. English Shops and Shopping: An Architectural History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Morriss, Richard, and Hoverd, Ken. The Buildings of Chester. Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing, 1993.Google Scholar
Moss, Michael, and Turton, Alison. A Legend in Retailing: House of Fraser. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1989.Google Scholar
Pasdermadjian, H. The Department Store: Its Origins, Evolution and Economics. London: Newman Books, 1954.Google Scholar
Pevsner, Nikolaus. A History of Building Types. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976.Google Scholar
Pound, Reginald. The Fenwick Story. Newcastle upon Tyne: Fenwick, 1972.Google Scholar
Powers, Alan. Shop Fronts. London: Chatto & Windus, 1989.Google Scholar
Rappaport, Erika. Shopping for Pleasure: Women in the Making of London’s West End, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Vanessa. Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin-de-Siecle Paris, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stobart, Jon, Hann, Andrew, and Morgan, Vicky. Spaces of Consumption: Leisure and Shopping in the English Town, c.1660–1830. London: Routledge, 2007.Google Scholar
Wells, H. G. The History of Mr. Polly. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1910.Google Scholar
Whitaker, Jan. The Department Store: History, Design, Display. London: Thames & Hudson, 2011.Google Scholar
Williams, Rosalind. Dream Worlds: Mass Consumption in Late Nineteenth Century France, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bertramsen, Helle. “Remoulding Commercial Space: Municipal Improvements and the Department Store in Late-Victorian Manchester.” In A Nation of Shopkeepers: Five Centuries of British Retailing, edited by Benson, John and Ugolini, Laura, 206225. London: Tauris, 2003.Google Scholar
Bertramsen, Helle. “What Was a Department Store? Defining Victorian Commercial Space.” Pre-publications of the English Department of Odense University, no. 100, February 1999.Google Scholar
Chaney, David. “The Department Store as a Cultural Form.” Theory, Culture, and Society 1, no. 3 (1983): 2231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coles, Tim. “Department Stores as Retail Innovations in Germany: A Historical-Geographical Perspective on the Period 1870 to 1914.” In Cathedrals of Consumption: The European Department Store, 1850–1939, edited by Crossick, Geoffrey and Jaumain, Serge, 7296. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999.Google Scholar
Coley, Catherine. “Les Magasins Reunis: From the Provinces to Paris, from Art Nouveau to Art Deco.” In Cathedrals of Consumption: The European Department Store, 1850–1939, edited by Crossick, Geoffrey and Jaumain, Serge, 225251. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999.Google Scholar
Crossick, Geoffrey, and Jaumain, Serge. “The World of the Department Store: Distribution, Culture and Social Change.” In Cathedrals of Consumption: The European Department Store, 1850–1939, edited by Crossick, Geoffrey and Jaumain, Serge, 145. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999.Google Scholar
Crossick, Geoffrey. “The Emergence of the Lower Middle Class in Britain: A Discussion.” In The Lower Middle Class in Britain, edited by Crossick, Geoffrey, 1160. London: Croom Helm Ltd., 1977.Google Scholar
Hann, Andrew, and Stobart, Jon. “Sites of Consumption: The Display of Goods in Provincial Shops in Eighteenth-Century England.” Cultural and Social History 2 (2005): 165187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawrence, Jeanne. “Geographical Space, Social Space, and the Realm of the Department Store.” Urban History 19 (1992): 64 83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Ian. “The Victorian Provincial Department Store: A Category Too Many?” History of Retailing and Consumption 1, no. 2 (2015): 149163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nava, Mica. “Modernity’s Disavowal: Women, the City and the Department Store.” In Modern Times: Reflections on a Century of English Modernity, edited by Nava, Mica and O’Shea, Alan, 3876. London: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Porter, J. “The Development of a Provincial Department Store, 1870–1939.” Business History, 13 (1971): 6471.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Proctor, Robert. “Constructing the Retail Monument: The Parisian Department Store and Its Property, 1855–1914.” Urban History 33 (2006): 393410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robson, Brian. “The Years Between.” In An Historical Geography of England and Wales, 2nd ed., edited by Dodgshon, Robert and Butlin, Robin, 545578. London: Academic Press, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, Peter, and Walker, James. “The British ‘Failure’ That Never Was? The ‘Productivity Gap’ in Large-Scale Interwar Retailing: Evidence from the Department Store Sector.” Economic History Review 65, no. 1 (2012): 277303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaw, Gareth. “The Evolution and Impact of Large-Scale Retailing In Britain.” In The Evolution of Retail Systems, edited by Benson, John and Shaw, Gareth, 139153. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Shaw, Gareth. “The Content and Reliability of Nineteenth-Century Trade Directories.” Local Historian 13 (1978): 205209.Google Scholar
Stobart, Jon. “City Centre Retailing in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Stoke-on-Trent: Structures and Processes.” In A Nation of Shopkeepers: Five Centuries of British Retailing, edited by Benson, John and Ugolini, Laura, 155178. London: I. B. Tauris, 2003.Google Scholar
Walsh, Claire. “The Newness of the Department Store: A View from the Eighteenth Century.” In Cathedrals of Consumption: The European Department Store, 1850–1939, edited by Crossick, Geoffrey and Jaumain, Serge, 4671. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999.Google Scholar
Walsh, Claire. “Shop Design and the Display of Goods in Eighteenth-Century London.” Journal of Design History, 8 (1995): 157176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Census returns, 1931.Google Scholar
Draper’s Record , June 30, 1888.Google Scholar
Kelly’s Directories , 1892, 1911, 1912, 1914, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1936.Google Scholar
Waxmann, F. A Shopping Guide to Paris and London. New York: McBride, Nast, 1912.Google Scholar
West, William. History, Topography and Directory of Warwickshire. Birmingham, 1830.Google Scholar
Picture Sheffield (Photos) Google Scholar
“China Department, Empire Trading Stamp Co. Ltd., General Dealers, 19–23 Howard Street, 1936,” www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s10644&action=zoom&pos=21718&id=13702&continueUrl= Google Scholar
“Gentlemen’s Department, Empire Trading Stamp Co. Ltd., 919–23 Howard Street, 1936,” www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s10645&pos=17&action=zoom&id=13703 Google Scholar
“Gents Outfitting, Brightside and Carbrook Co-operative Society Ltd., City Stores, 1929,” www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s11229&action=zoom&pos=2&id=14244&continueUrl= Google Scholar
“Ladies’ Wear Display, Mannequin Stand, Brightside and Carbrook Co-operative Society Ltd., City Stores, Exchange Street, 1929,” www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s11226&pos=158&action=zoom&id=14241 Google Scholar
“Millinery Displays, Brightside and Carbrook Co-operative Society Ltd., City Stores, 1929,” www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s11227&pos=159&action=zoom&id=14242 Google Scholar
“Stairs Up to Restaurants, Offices, Brightside and Carbrook Co-operative Society Ltd., City Stores, Exchange Street, 1929,” www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s11215&pos=147&action=zoom&id=14230 Google Scholar
“Window Display—Fabrics, Brightside and Carbrook Co-operative Society Ltd., City Stores, Exchange Street, 1929,” www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s11209&pos=141&action=zoom&id=14224 Google Scholar
“Window Display—Ladies Shoes, Brightside and Carbrook Co-operative Society Ltd., City Stores, Exchange Street, 1929,” www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s11211&action=zoom&pos=143&id=14226&continueUrl= Google Scholar
Staffordshire Past Tracks (Photos) Google Scholar
Windows on Warwickshire (Photos) Google Scholar
Bowlby, Rachel. Just Looking: Consumer Culture in Dreiser, Gissing and Zola. London: Routledge, 1985.Google Scholar
Briggs, Asa. Friends of the People: The Centenary History of Lewis’s. London: Batsford, 1956.Google Scholar
Cohen, Deborah. Household Gods: The British and their Possessions. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Corina, Maurice. Fine Silks and Oak Counters: Debenhams, 1778–1978. London: Hutchinson, 1978.Google Scholar
Cox, Nancy. The Complete Tradesman: A Study of Retailing, 1550–1820. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2000.Google Scholar
Honeycombe, Gordon. Selfridges: Seventy-Five Years: The Story of the Store, 1909–1983. London: Selfridges Ltd., 1984.Google Scholar
Jefferys, James. Retail Trading in Britain, 1850–1950. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954.Google Scholar
Kindred, David. Ipswich: A Second Selection. Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing, 1993.Google Scholar
Lancaster, Bill. The Department Store: A Social History, Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
MacKeith, Margaret. Shopping Arcades: A Gazetteer of Extant British Arcades, 1817–1939, London: Mansell Publishing, 1985.Google Scholar
Markus, Thomas. Buildings and Power. London: Routledge, 1993.Google Scholar
Mass Observation, and Whitlock, H. D.. Brown’s of Chester: A Portrait of a Shop, 1780–1946. London: L. Drummond, 1947.Google Scholar
Miller, Michael. The Bon Marché: Bourgeois Culture and the Department Store, 1869–1920, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Ian. Tradition and Innovation in English Retailing, 1700 to 1850. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014.Google Scholar
Morrison, Kathryn. English Shops and Shopping: An Architectural History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Morriss, Richard, and Hoverd, Ken. The Buildings of Chester. Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing, 1993.Google Scholar
Moss, Michael, and Turton, Alison. A Legend in Retailing: House of Fraser. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1989.Google Scholar
Pasdermadjian, H. The Department Store: Its Origins, Evolution and Economics. London: Newman Books, 1954.Google Scholar
Pevsner, Nikolaus. A History of Building Types. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976.Google Scholar
Pound, Reginald. The Fenwick Story. Newcastle upon Tyne: Fenwick, 1972.Google Scholar
Powers, Alan. Shop Fronts. London: Chatto & Windus, 1989.Google Scholar
Rappaport, Erika. Shopping for Pleasure: Women in the Making of London’s West End, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Vanessa. Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin-de-Siecle Paris, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stobart, Jon, Hann, Andrew, and Morgan, Vicky. Spaces of Consumption: Leisure and Shopping in the English Town, c.1660–1830. London: Routledge, 2007.Google Scholar
Wells, H. G. The History of Mr. Polly. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1910.Google Scholar
Whitaker, Jan. The Department Store: History, Design, Display. London: Thames & Hudson, 2011.Google Scholar
Williams, Rosalind. Dream Worlds: Mass Consumption in Late Nineteenth Century France, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bertramsen, Helle. “Remoulding Commercial Space: Municipal Improvements and the Department Store in Late-Victorian Manchester.” In A Nation of Shopkeepers: Five Centuries of British Retailing, edited by Benson, John and Ugolini, Laura, 206225. London: Tauris, 2003.Google Scholar
Bertramsen, Helle. “What Was a Department Store? Defining Victorian Commercial Space.” Pre-publications of the English Department of Odense University, no. 100, February 1999.Google Scholar
Chaney, David. “The Department Store as a Cultural Form.” Theory, Culture, and Society 1, no. 3 (1983): 2231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coles, Tim. “Department Stores as Retail Innovations in Germany: A Historical-Geographical Perspective on the Period 1870 to 1914.” In Cathedrals of Consumption: The European Department Store, 1850–1939, edited by Crossick, Geoffrey and Jaumain, Serge, 7296. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999.Google Scholar
Coley, Catherine. “Les Magasins Reunis: From the Provinces to Paris, from Art Nouveau to Art Deco.” In Cathedrals of Consumption: The European Department Store, 1850–1939, edited by Crossick, Geoffrey and Jaumain, Serge, 225251. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999.Google Scholar
Crossick, Geoffrey, and Jaumain, Serge. “The World of the Department Store: Distribution, Culture and Social Change.” In Cathedrals of Consumption: The European Department Store, 1850–1939, edited by Crossick, Geoffrey and Jaumain, Serge, 145. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999.Google Scholar
Crossick, Geoffrey. “The Emergence of the Lower Middle Class in Britain: A Discussion.” In The Lower Middle Class in Britain, edited by Crossick, Geoffrey, 1160. London: Croom Helm Ltd., 1977.Google Scholar
Hann, Andrew, and Stobart, Jon. “Sites of Consumption: The Display of Goods in Provincial Shops in Eighteenth-Century England.” Cultural and Social History 2 (2005): 165187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawrence, Jeanne. “Geographical Space, Social Space, and the Realm of the Department Store.” Urban History 19 (1992): 64 83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Ian. “The Victorian Provincial Department Store: A Category Too Many?” History of Retailing and Consumption 1, no. 2 (2015): 149163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nava, Mica. “Modernity’s Disavowal: Women, the City and the Department Store.” In Modern Times: Reflections on a Century of English Modernity, edited by Nava, Mica and O’Shea, Alan, 3876. London: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Porter, J. “The Development of a Provincial Department Store, 1870–1939.” Business History, 13 (1971): 6471.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Proctor, Robert. “Constructing the Retail Monument: The Parisian Department Store and Its Property, 1855–1914.” Urban History 33 (2006): 393410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robson, Brian. “The Years Between.” In An Historical Geography of England and Wales, 2nd ed., edited by Dodgshon, Robert and Butlin, Robin, 545578. London: Academic Press, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, Peter, and Walker, James. “The British ‘Failure’ That Never Was? The ‘Productivity Gap’ in Large-Scale Interwar Retailing: Evidence from the Department Store Sector.” Economic History Review 65, no. 1 (2012): 277303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaw, Gareth. “The Evolution and Impact of Large-Scale Retailing In Britain.” In The Evolution of Retail Systems, edited by Benson, John and Shaw, Gareth, 139153. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Shaw, Gareth. “The Content and Reliability of Nineteenth-Century Trade Directories.” Local Historian 13 (1978): 205209.Google Scholar
Stobart, Jon. “City Centre Retailing in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Stoke-on-Trent: Structures and Processes.” In A Nation of Shopkeepers: Five Centuries of British Retailing, edited by Benson, John and Ugolini, Laura, 155178. London: I. B. Tauris, 2003.Google Scholar
Walsh, Claire. “The Newness of the Department Store: A View from the Eighteenth Century.” In Cathedrals of Consumption: The European Department Store, 1850–1939, edited by Crossick, Geoffrey and Jaumain, Serge, 4671. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999.Google Scholar
Walsh, Claire. “Shop Design and the Display of Goods in Eighteenth-Century London.” Journal of Design History, 8 (1995): 157176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Census returns, 1931.Google Scholar
Draper’s Record , June 30, 1888.Google Scholar
Kelly’s Directories , 1892, 1911, 1912, 1914, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1936.Google Scholar
Waxmann, F. A Shopping Guide to Paris and London. New York: McBride, Nast, 1912.Google Scholar
West, William. History, Topography and Directory of Warwickshire. Birmingham, 1830.Google Scholar
Picture Sheffield (Photos) Google Scholar
“China Department, Empire Trading Stamp Co. Ltd., General Dealers, 19–23 Howard Street, 1936,” www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s10644&action=zoom&pos=21718&id=13702&continueUrl= Google Scholar
“Gentlemen’s Department, Empire Trading Stamp Co. Ltd., 919–23 Howard Street, 1936,” www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s10645&pos=17&action=zoom&id=13703 Google Scholar
“Gents Outfitting, Brightside and Carbrook Co-operative Society Ltd., City Stores, 1929,” www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s11229&action=zoom&pos=2&id=14244&continueUrl= Google Scholar
“Ladies’ Wear Display, Mannequin Stand, Brightside and Carbrook Co-operative Society Ltd., City Stores, Exchange Street, 1929,” www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s11226&pos=158&action=zoom&id=14241 Google Scholar
“Millinery Displays, Brightside and Carbrook Co-operative Society Ltd., City Stores, 1929,” www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s11227&pos=159&action=zoom&id=14242 Google Scholar
“Stairs Up to Restaurants, Offices, Brightside and Carbrook Co-operative Society Ltd., City Stores, Exchange Street, 1929,” www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s11215&pos=147&action=zoom&id=14230 Google Scholar
“Window Display—Fabrics, Brightside and Carbrook Co-operative Society Ltd., City Stores, Exchange Street, 1929,” www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s11209&pos=141&action=zoom&id=14224 Google Scholar
“Window Display—Ladies Shoes, Brightside and Carbrook Co-operative Society Ltd., City Stores, Exchange Street, 1929,” www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s11211&action=zoom&pos=143&id=14226&continueUrl= Google Scholar
Staffordshire Past Tracks (Photos) Google Scholar
Windows on Warwickshire (Photos) Google Scholar