Boyes (retailer)

Boyes is a chain of department stores in England. William Boyes founded the firm in 1881 in Scarborough, North Yorkshire and it has been run by generations of the Boyes family ever since.

For other uses, see Boyes.

W Boyes & Co. Ltd
Private
IndustryRetail
Founded1881 (1881)
Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England
FounderWilliam Boyes
HeadquartersEastfield, North Yorkshire, England
Number of locations
67 (September 2019)
Key people
Andrew Boyes (chairman, Joint Managing Director)
Richard Boyes (Joint Managing Director)
ProductsVariety
Websitewww.boyes.co.uk

The company's slogan is "for good value" and the stores specialise in the discount retail sector, stocking a mixture of regular lines, one off special purchases and clearance items. Boyes stores stock over 30,000 products over a large range including household products, fashion and footwear.[1]

Its full trading name is W Boyes and Co. Ltd, however the stores trade as "Boyes" (pronounced Boys but often mispronounced as Boys-es).[2] It is still owned and family run with Andrew Boyes and his son Richard as joint managing directors. Richard represents the fifth generation of the family.[3]

The company is based at its head office at Havers Hill in Eastfield. It expanded this site with the purchase of the former Polestar Greaves factory in 2011. It also has a warehouse site at nearby Hopper Hill.[4]

The stores serve around 250,000 customers a week. They run a twice yearly sale and hold other promotional events.[5]

Boyes warehouse, Eastfield

History

Scarborough
Boyes, Queen Street, Scarborough

Founder William Boyes was born in 1859 and started his career as an apprentice draper with a firm called George and Collings. At the end of his apprenticeship, saving £10 from his wages he opened his first store at the corner of Eastborough and Globe Street in Scarborough, selling remnants from merchants. The area was full of poverty, and the store was therefore popular with housewives.

Trade increased and William needed bigger premises to operate. Two corner units on Market Street and Queen Street were purchased in 1886. Further buildings were acquired and within ten years almost all of one side of Market Street was owned by Boyes. The store was named “The Remnant Warehouse” and is still known as the Rem by older residents of Scarborough.[6] In 1900 Boyes became a limited company when William and three friends, James Pirie, Henry Merrie Cross and JH Harrison invested in the business.[7]

Over the years William added more products to the range and the store went from a warehouse to a department store.[8] The company began to expand to York, Hull and Grimsby in the following years. Stores in Newcastle upon Tyne and North Shields were also opened, but closed in the Great Depression.

On 26 February 1915, the store was destroyed by a huge fire, which is believed to be the biggest in Scarborough's history. It caused around £70,000 of damage. The store was insured and it was rebuilt.[9]

The Scarborough store was home to a number of animals in the past, including monkeys, chipmunks and budgies.[10] The animals were used as way of encouraging customers to visit the store and purchase something whilst they visited. Two of the monkeys, Jacko and Dinah, are famous to a generation of Scarborough shoppers.

The Scarborough store served as Boyes head office until the site at Eastfield opened in 1971.[11]

Hull
Hessle Road
Boyes, Hessle Road, Hull

Boyes operated in Kingston upon Hull from 1898 with a shop in Prospect Street, but it was closed in 1901 when the lease was sold to Taylor's Drug Store, a business owned by another Boyes director, William Taylor Mason. In 1920 they returned to Hull, this time on Hessle Road. The company leased a building owned by Johnny Wardell, later buying the lease.[12] In 1927 Boyes bought a neighbouring property to extend the store and further extended the store in the 1950s.[13]

Holderness Road
Boyes, Holderness Road, Hull
Plaque outside Boyes, Holderness Road, Hull

The next store in Hull opened on Holderness Road in 1965. The store was built on the site of the former Savoy cinema. The cinema was bombed in the last Luftwaffe attack of World War II to cause civilian casualties in the UK. Thirteen people were killed and 22 injured and they are commemorated on a plaque on the outside of the store.[14][15]

Bransholme

A store in the Bransholme (now North Point) centre followed in 1973. Boyes were the first company to sign up to open a store in the centre.[16] The Bransholme store was under threat of closure in 2014 when terms on a new lease could not be agreed and the company began looking for new premises in Hull. After negotiations, a new lease was agreed, but Boyes still pushed on with plans for a new store.[17]

Whitefriargate

The company's fourth store in Hull, on Whitefriargate opened on 19 September 2014. The unit was previously occupied by Peacocks, and before this it was one of the first Woolworths stores in the UK.[18][19]

York
Fire at Boyes, Ouse Bridge, York

Boyes opened in York in 1906, on Bridge Street near the River Ouse in a former paint warehouse. The store was destroyed by fire on 8 December 1910. The fire was thought to have begun in the toy department when gas lamps came into contact with Christmas decorations. The fire took six hours to put out, but all staff and customers were safely evacuated. Boyes moved temporarily to Clifford Street whilst their premises were being rebuilt. The fire is estimated to have caused £20,000 of damage.

There was a delay to the rebuilding of the store in a tragic accident in February 1912. A workman was killed and seven others injured when a clock tower being built collapsed. The store reopened without a clock tower in December 1912.[20]

The building was extended in 1966, and plans were made for it to be modernised in 1978. However, these plans were not viable and the store closed on 26 February 1983. Boyes returned to York on 15 May 1987 with a smaller store on Goodramgate.[21] Another store within the York city area was opened in Acomb, in April 2015.[22]

Grimsby

The firm established a presence in Grimsby in 1926 when the Hewlands store on Freeman Street was purchased by Boyes after the owner, Ernest Hewland got into financial difficulties. The store continued to trade under the Hewlands name until 1956 when Mr Hewland retired. The building was replaced with a new property on the same site and went by the Boyes name.

The store traded well and 1958 Boyes purchased five old properties further down Freeman Street and built a second store in their place. This store opened in May 1961. Boyes traded from both sites until the newer site was extended and reopened in October 1974 and the original Hewlands site was sold.[23] A store in neighbouring Cleethorpes was opened in 2010 in a former Woolworths branch.[24]

Further expansion

Boyes opened stores in Billingham in 1967, Darlington in 1970[25] and Louth in 1976.[26] The tenth store in Northallerton opened in 1977.[27]

Boyes, King Street, Bridlington

The company then developed a chain of stores throughout Northern England in the following decades. A store was opened in Bridlington in 1998 which has a museum with artefacts from the firm's history as well as a recreation of a till point from the start of the 20th century.[28][29]

The company's first store in West Yorkshire, in Bradford, opened in 2003. Boyes took over the former Christopher Pratts store in North Parade after Pratts relocated to Leeds. At the time the company invested more than £500,000 to refurbish the store before opening and the store was one of the biggest in the chain. The company opened a small section of the store earlier in 2003 before a full opening in September.[30] In 2019 the store relocated from North Parade to the Kirkgate Centre. The North Parade site had become unviable with the company citing factors including the closure of the city centre Morrisons store and the planned relocation of the market in the area. Boyes took over the former Argos unit in the centre.[31]

Boyes has expanded its reach further by opening several stores in the East Midlands and as far south as Cambridgeshire. The company reached its landmark 50th store with the opening of the Coalville store in 2014.[32]

The company has increased store numbers in many cases by moving into units vacated by other retailers. They have taken over ex-Woolworths stores in Cleethorpes, Bishop Auckland and Coalville. Former Co-op department stores in Brighouse, Ilkley, March and Ripley have been taken over, and a couple of vacated Marks and Spencer stores in Grantham and South Shields.[33]

In recent years the company has relocated some of its branches to new locations in the same town. As well as the Bradford relocation, in 2017 the Gainsborough store was relocated due to the original one being demolished for the building of a new Lidl supermarket. Boyes now trade from a newly built unit on the site of the former Crown House.[34] In 2018 the Middlesbrough store moved from the Dundas Centre to the Hill Street Centre, moving into a former Argos outlet.[35]

Store numbers reached 67 in September 2019 with the opening of a store in Barton-upon-Humber, the first to be adorned with the new company logo.[36]

Business operations

The stores are organised in different departments and have a large range of different products including toys, stationery, toiletries, housewares, electrical appliances, DIY items, fishing tackle, model making, soft furnishings, dress fabrics, knitting yarn, haberdashery, crafts, confectionery, pet products and babywear.[1] They also have a large range of clothing and footwear with ranges for men, ladies and children. Some of their larger stores also have a carpet and furniture department. Two branches at Bridlington and Scarborough also have a cafe.[37]

It has a presence on social media, with accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The company supports a number of local causes and is a sponsor of Scarborough Cricket Club.[38] In February 2012 company directors Andrew Boyes and Timothy Boyes were given Freedom of the Borough of Scarborough.[39]

The Scarborough store is part of a long-standing tradition in the town each year. Father Christmas arrives on a boat in the harbour and after a parade through the town, is resident in a grotto in the store until Christmas Eve.[40] The grotto and window displays have a different theme each year.[41]

  • Boyes, Station Square, Whitby
  • Boyes, Wednesday Market, Beverley
  • Boyes, North Parade, Bradford (closed 2019)
  • Boyes, Swadford Street, Skipton
  • Boyes, High Street, Barton-upon-Humber, September 2019

Store locations
LocationOpenedNotes
Cambridgeshire
MarchNovember 2011[42]
County Durham
Barnard Castle1983[43]
Billingham1967with carpet and furniture departments
Bishop AucklandNovember 2010[44]
Chester-le-Street1991
Consett2006[45]
Darlington1970with carpet and furniture departments
Newton AycliffeJune 1993[46]
Stockton-on-Tees1993
Cumbria
Kendal2006[47]
Derbyshire
ChesterfieldJuly 2014[48]
HeanorNovember 2014[49]
MatlockSeptember 2018[50]
RipleyOctober 2013[51]
Lancashire
PadihamJuly 2016[52]
RoytonApril 2016[53]
Leicestershire
CoalvilleJuly 2014
Melton Mowbray2008
Lincolnshire
Barton-upon-HumberSeptember 2019
BriggOctober 2012[54]
CleethorpesJune 2010
Gainsborough2006, relocated 2017
GranthamNovember 2012[55]
GrimsbyAugust 1956, relocated May 1961with carpet and furniture departments
HolbeachMarch 2005[56]
Lincoln2003[57]
Louth1976
Sleaford2003[57]
Nottinghamshire
ArnoldOctober 2009[58]
BinghamJune 2013[59]
EastwoodMay 2014[60]
Kirkby-in-Ashfield2006[61]
Market WarsopNovember 2015[62]
NewarkMay 2004[63]
OllertonFebruary 2013[64]
RetfordNovember 2018[65]
WorksopNovember 2018[66]
Tyne and Wear
BlaydonFebruary 2016[67]
South ShieldsSeptember 2018[68]
East Riding of Yorkshire
BeverleyOctober 1993
BridlingtonMarch 1998with carpet and furniture departments, cafe and company museum)
Driffield1993
Goole1997
Bransholme, North Point Centre, East Hull1973
Hessle Road, West Hull1920with carpet and furniture departments
Holderness Road, East Hull1965with carpet and furniture departments
Whitefriargate, Hull City CentreSeptember 2014
North Yorkshire
AcombApril 2015
Coulby NewhamApril 2017[69]
Guisborough1981
Malton1984
MiddlesbroughDundas Centre 2008, relocated Hill Street 2018
Northallerton1977with carpet and furniture departments
Redcar1981[70]
Scarborough1881, relocated 1886with carpet, furniture departments and cafe
SkiptonMay 2013[71]
Stokesley1983
ThornabySeptember 2016[72]
WhitbyJune 1984[73]
Yarm1986
YorkOuse Bridge 1906, closed 1983; reopened Goodramgate 1987
South Yorkshire
DoncasterMay 2011[4]
Firth Park, SheffieldNovember 2016[74]
HoylandSeptember 2017[75]
West Yorkshire
BradfordNorth Parade 2003, relocated Kirkgate Centre May 2019
BrighouseAugust 2010[76]
IlkleySeptember 2010[77]
gollark: Not that anything by lyricly can be trusted.
gollark: According to typing speeder I'm something like 35WPM slower on mobile.
gollark: It's *responsive* except in Discord which since a few versions ago had horrible typing latency sometimes for no fathomable reason, it's just *bad*.
gollark: Yes it is. Programming is art when it's potatOS.
gollark: And yet they don't have usable keybords for writing things, sufficiently large screens to do video editing and such without æ, OSes which are designed to allow data sharing between apps for purposes, a sufficiently non-locked-down system for basically any sort of scripting/programming outside of somewhat isolated environments, etc.

References
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  2. Robinson, Hannah (10 August 2019). "The Hull areas people seem to always mispronounce and the history behind them". Hull Daily Mail. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
  3. "Boyes expands but sticks with tradition". The Yorkshire Post. 1 June 2012. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  4. "Scarborough family firm expands". The Scarborough News. 25 May 2011. Archived from the original on 28 October 2019. Retrieved 20 November 2019.
  5. Edwards, John (30 January 2019). "Boyes sale in Scarborough - see 15 photos from down the years". The Scarborough News. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
  6. "Boyes - Made in Yorkshire - Volume 25". I'm From Yorkshire. 26 August 2015. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  7. "Buying well, selling cheap still pays off". The Northern Echo. 24 May 2015. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  8. "Boyes History". www.boyes.co.uk. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
  9. Stephenson, Susan (26 February 2015). "Blaze 100 Years On..." The Scarborough News. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
  10. Berry, Dave (24 January 2012). "Jean Sidebottom spent most of her childhood moving between relatives in Scarborough and Scotland. She is the longest-serving member of staff and remembers a powerful monkey running riot in the store". The Scarborough News. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  11. "Malcolm's happy life in great place to grow up". The Scarborough News. 8 December 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  12. "Boyes prepares for a famous 'Big Sale' and hopes new store will help rejuvenate Whitefriargate". Hull Daily Mail. 28 August 2014. Archived from the original on 4 January 2015. Retrieved 4 January 2015.
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  53. Mancunian1001. "Go Cheapway...to Royton". East of the M60. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
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  57. "BOYES STORES". 23 November 2003. Archived from the original on 23 November 2003. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  58. "Scarborough store's empire grows with new opening". The Scarborough News. 11 November 2009. Archived from the original on 2 November 2019. Retrieved 20 November 2019.
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  60. "Boyes could spark Eastwood revival". Eastwood Advertiser. 23 May 2014. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
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  63. "BOYES STORES". 21 March 2004. Archived from the original on 21 March 2004. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  64. "Boyes expands with new stores". The Press (York). 13 February 2013. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
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  66. "Date confirmed for the closure of Worksop's M&S Food Hall". Worksop Guardian. 3 January 2019. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
  67. "Latest News". Blaydon Shopping Centre. Retrieved 21 November 2019.
  68. "New Boyes store welcomes first customers as branch opens in former South Shields Marks and Spencer". Shields Gazette. 7 September 2018. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
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  70. "The new Boyes store in Redcar High Street. 26th August 1981". Alamy.com. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  71. Everett, Steve (13 May 2013). "Expanding Boyes opens new Skipton store". Yorkshire Business Daily. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  72. "Pavilion Shopping Centre | Connect Property News". CPNE. 8 October 2016. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  73. "Store celebrates 25th anniversary in style". Whitby Gazette. 24 June 2009. Archived from the original on 28 October 2019. Retrieved 20 November 2019.
  74. "Retailer Boyes first to sign up to new business fire safety partnership scheme". South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue. 10 November 2016. Retrieved 21 November 2019.
  75. "Latest phase of work on Hoyland redevelopment project". Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council. 25 January 2017. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
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  77. "Ilkley store is Boyes' new addition". The Scarborough News. 7 October 2010. Archived from the original on 28 October 2019. Retrieved 20 November 2019.
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