William Whiteley

William Whiteley (29 September 1831 – 24 January 1907) was an English entrepreneur of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the founder of the William Whiteley Limited retail company whose eponymous department store became the Whiteleys shopping centre.

For other people named William Whiteley, see William Whiteley (disambiguation).
William Whiteley
Born
William Whiteley

29 September 1831
Purston, Yorkshire, England
Died24 January 1907(1907-01-24) (aged 75)
Bayswater, England
OccupationRetail entrepreneur

Early life

Whiteley was born in Yorkshire in the small village of Purston, situated between Wakefield and Pontefract. His father was a prosperous corn dealer, who had little interest in rearing his son, leaving William to be raised by an uncle. He left school at the age of 14, and started work at his uncle's farm. He would have liked to have been a veterinary surgeon or perhaps a jockey but his family had other ideas. In 1848 they started him on a seven-year apprenticeship with Harnew & Glover, the largest drapers in Wakefield. Whiteley took his new job seriously and received a "severe drilling in the arts and mysteries of the trade."[1]

In 1851 he paid his first visit to London to see the Great Exhibition. The exhibition fired his imagination, particularly the magnificent displays of manufactured goods. All that could be bought or sold was on display, but nothing was for sale. Whiteley had the idea that he could create a store as grand as the Crystal Palace where all these goods could be under one roof and it would make him the most important shopkeeper in the world. Wakefield, once the centre of the Yorkshire woollen trade, was in decline and Whiteley now wanted to be something more than a small town draper. On completion of his apprenticeship he arrived in London with £10 in his pocket.[2]

Business career

He took a job with R. Willey & Company in Ludgate Hill, and then Morrison & Dillon's to learn all aspects of the trade. Whiteley lived frugally. Not smoking or drinking, he was able to save £700, enough to start his own business. In 1863 he opened a Fancy Goods shop (drapery) at 31 Westbourne Grove, Bayswater, employing two girls to serve and a boy to run errands.[3] Later one of the girls, Harriet Sarah Hall (or possibly Hill, based on marriage records), became his wife.

Although friends warned him that the location was not promising, his business grew, eventually requiring fifteen employees. He made a consistent practice of marking all goods in plain figures and of making his shop window attractive, and was satisfied with small profits.[3] He began buying more shops in Westbourne Grove, and by 1875 he owned an unbroken row of shopfronts.[4] At the time when he opened his first store, Westbourne Grove was an upper middle-class area serving a wealthy clientele, but this area was declining in social status and popularity. Whiteley then began to develop more of a mass market appeal. He transformed his humble linen drapery into London's first department store by adding a meat and vegetable department and an Oriental department with cheap, imported goods from Japan and China.[5]

Rival retailers resented Whiteley's encroachment on their territory and in 1876, they staged an angry charivari (public shaming ritual) by demonstrating in the streets and burning a "Guy" dressed in the traditional costume of a draper.[6]

Claiming that he could provide anything from a pin to an elephant, William Whiteley dubbed himself "The Universal Provider".[7] In 1899 the business became a public limited company, with Whiteley as the majority shareholder.[3]

Murder

On 24 January 1907, Whiteley was shot dead at his shop by Horace George Rayner, aged 29, who claimed that he was Whiteley's illegitimate son.[8] In his will Whiteley left £1 million (a fabulous amount at that time, equivalent in 2018 to £103 million). Some of the money was used to create Whiteley Village, a retirement village near Walton-on-Thames.

Following his death, Whiteley's two sons carried on operating the business and opened a new shop in 1912. This was eventually sold to Harry Gordon Selfridge in 1927.[8]

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gollark: ++delete <@319753218592866315> for admin abuse
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gollark: I should add RNG to AutoBotRobot.

See also

References
  1. Stratmannm L., Whiteley's Folly: The Life and Death of a Salesman, The History Press, 2004, Chapter 1
  2. Rappaport, E.D., Shopping for Pleasure: Women in the Making of London's West End, Princeton University Press, 2001, pp 27-28
  3. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Whiteley, William" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 605–606.
  4. "William Whitely", [Catalog Entry], UK National Archives, Online:
  5. Iarocci, L., Visual Merchandising: The Image of Selling, Ashgate Publishing, 2013, pp 120-121; Rappaport. E.D., "The Halls of Temptation: Gender, Politics, and the Construction of the Department Store in Late Victorian London", Journal of British Studies, Vol. 35, No. 1, 1996, pp. 58-83 Online:
  6. Rappaport. E.D., "The Halls of Temptation: Gender, Politics, and the Construction of the Department Store in Late Victorian London", Journal of British Studies, Vol. 35, No. 1, 1996, pp. 58-83 Online:
  7. Lambert, Richard S., The Universal Provider: A Study of William Whiteley and the Rise of the London Department Store, London, George Harrap & Co., 1938
  8. Johnson, L., "What fate had in store for Whiteley and Selfridge", The Telegraph, 9 October 2005, Online:
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