The story
Founded by David Lewis in 1856, in Liverpool.1
The first Lewis's was opened in 1856 in Liverpool by entrepreneur David Lewis, as a men's and boys' clothing store, mostly manufacturing his own stock. In 1864, Lewis's branched out into women's clothing. In the 1870s, the store expanded and added departments, including shoes in 1874, and tobacco in 1879. His motto was Friends of the People, and he intended the shopping experience to be inclusive.
The first Lewis's outside Liverpool opened in nearby Manchester in 1877. Another store was opened, at the suggestion of Joseph Chamberlain, on the new Corporation Street in Birmingham in 1885. The Manchester store included a full scale ballroom on the fifth floor, which was also used for exhibitions. Buying offices were also located on the fifth floor until a takeover by Liverpool-based competitor Owen Owen (see below). A fourth store opened in Sheffield in 1884 but proved unprofitable and closed in 1888.
After the death of Lewis in 1885, his nephew Louis Cohen took over the business, and oversaw a period of consolidation. After Cohen's death in 1922, control passed to Harold and his younger brother Rex Cohen, who took the company public in 1924. Harold was the first chairman of the new public liability company until his death in 1936. New stores were once again opened, in Glasgow (1929), Leeds (1932), Hanley in Stoke-on-Trent (1934) and Leicester (1936), many of which were designed by the company architect, Gerald de Courcy Fraser. Lewis's were generally among the largest department stores in their cities.
Frederick James Marquis dominated the company after Rex Cohen's death in 1928. When he joined the board in 1920, aged 37, he was the first member of the board outside of the family. He became director in 1928 and chairman in 1936. Between 1929-1939 the company continued to expand against a difficult national economic background.
Lewis's took over the Royal Welsh Warehouse—the company that started large-scale mail order—in 1938. The company responded to the Anschluss with a total boycott of goods imported from Nazi Germany, despite pressure from the pro-appeasement National Government of Neville Chamberlain.
In 1951, the Lewis's group purchased the famous London department store Selfridges, expanding that brand by adding Moultons of Ilford in 1962 and rebranding it Selfridges. In 1965, Lewis's became part of the Sears Group headed by Charles Clore. In 1966, the group launched Miss Selfridge fashions, which later became a store chain in its own right.
A branch was opened on Blackpool promenade, next to Blackpool Tower, in 1964 on the site of the Alhambra. The building had a distinctive 1960s design, with a turquoise tiled exterior. After it closed in 1993, building work was undertaken to remove some of the upper floors and the redeveloped site housed a Mecca bingo hall, with part of the ground floor space being subsequently occupied by Woolworths, and later by Poundland, Harry Ramsden's and a variety of smaller retail units.
The company's Manchester store was one of several targets attacked by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on 27 January 1975.
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Christmas grotto
The world's first Christmas grotto opened in Lewis's in 1879, entitled 'Christmas Fairyland'; a concept devised by the store's founder David Lewis, this first is listed in the Guinness Book of Records. A staple of Liverpool's festive season, many generations first visited Father Christmas here, with the final displays covering over 10,000 square feet (930 m2). In 2010, the Lewis's grotto manager, display team and staff moved the Lewis's Christmas Grotto to the fourth floor of Rapid Hardware, in the former George Henry Lee (John Lewis) building.
Decline
The company went into administration in 1991 as a result of a combination of problems, including the early 1990s recession and failing to compete effectively. This resulted in Liverpool competitor Owen Owen buying up several branches of Lewis's (but retaining the Lewis's brand name on those purchased stores). Sir Philip Green revived the selling of toys on a large scale, by launching the brand Kids HQ in four Lewis's Owen Owen stores, including those in Liverpool and Manchester. The Leicester branch traded independently for a short while, following a management buyout, as 'Lewis's of Leicester', before eventually closing. Other branches, including the Birmingham store, closed down.
After the 1996 Manchester bombing by the IRA, trading space in Lewis's was rented to Marks & Spencer and other smaller retailers displaced following heavy damage to the Corn Exchange. Marks & Spencer and the small retailers moved into new accommodation in 1999; Lewis's suffered from a smaller footfall thereafter, and attempted to remain in business by reinventing itself as partially a 'discount retailer'. In a final attempt to arrest the decline, the remainder-clothing retailer TK Maxx was invited to trade from the basement floor. In 2001, the Manchester branch ceased trading; the premises are now occupied by a branch of Primark.
The last store to trade as Lewis's was the Liverpool original. This followed the sale of other branches of Lewis's from Owen Owen to other operators, including Debenhams and Allders, during the 1990s.
On 28 February 2007, the Liverpool store went into liquidation. On 23 March 2007, it was sold as a going concern to Vergo Retail Ltd., enabling the store to continue to trade as Lewis's. The store closed permanently on 29 May 2010 as the lease could not be renewed. Until it closed the building retained its original lifts, controlled by a lift operator rather than users.
From Wikipedia’s article on Lewis's, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5