Harrods
Harrods is a department store located in Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, London, SW1
1824 Charles Henry Harrod first set up shop on the south of the River Thames in Southwark, at 228, Borough High Street. He ran this business, variously listed as a Draper, or Mercer and Haberdasher, certainly until 1831.
1826 Partnership dissolved. '...the Partnership which subsisted between the undersigned, William Wicking and Charles Henry Harrod, in the business of Linen-Drapers, at No. 238, High-Street, Southwark, was dissolved by mutual consent on the 31st day of December last; and that the business will in future be carried on by th« said Charles Henry Harrod only...'[1]
1832 His first grocery business appears to be as ‘Harrod & Co. Grocers’ at 163 Upper Whitecross Street, Clerkenwell, E.C.1.
1834 In London's East End, he established a wholesale grocery in Stepney, at 4, Cable Street, with a special interest in tea.
1849 To escape the vice of the inner city and to capitalise on trade to the Great Exhibition of 1851 in nearby Hyde Park, Harrod took over a small shop in the district of Knightsbridge, on the site of the current store. Beginning in a single room employing two assistants and a messenger boy, Harrod's son Charles Digby Harrod built the business into a thriving retail operation selling medicines, perfumes, stationery fruit, and vegetables.
1861 Harrods undergoes a transformation when it was taken over by Charles Henry Harrod's son, Charles Digby Harrod
Harrods rapidly expanded, acquired the adjoining buildings, and employed one hundred people by 1880.
1883 In early December the store burnt to the ground but Charles Harrod fulfilled all of his commitments to his customers to make Christmas deliveries that year and made a record profits. A new building was built on the same site, and soon Harrods extended credit for the first time to its best customers.
1885 Listed as Charles Digby Harrod and Co, provision dealers of Brompton Road [2]
1889 Charles Digby Harrod retires, and Harrods shares are floated on the London Stock Exchange under the name Harrod's Stores Limited. Directors are: A. J. newton (Chairman of the Empire Palace); James Bailey (proprietor of Bailey's Hotel and South Kensington Hotel); H. Bennett (Marler and Bennett, Estate Agents); F. H. Harvey-Samuel; and William Joseph Lamb. The store manager is William George Smart.[3]
1898 November 16th. Harrods debuted England's first "moving staircase" (escalator) in their Brompton road stores; the device was actually a woven leather conveyor belt-like unit with a mahogany and "silver plate-glass" balustrade.[ Nervous customers were offered brandy at the top to revive them after their 'ordeal'. The department store was purchased by the Fayed brothers in 1985.[
1905 Begun in 1894, the present building is completed to the design of architect Charles William Stephens.
1909 Richard Burbidge in managing director
1914 Harrods opens its first and only foreign branch in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It became independent of Harrods in the late 1940s but still traded under the Harrods name usable only in Argentina Harrods Buenos Aires.
1914 Harrods buys the Regent Street department store Dickins and Jones.
1919 Harrods buys the Manchester department store, Kendals; it took on the Harrods name for a short time in the 1920s, but the name was changed back to Kendals following protests from staff and customers.
1928 Acquired D. H. Evans[4]
1959 The British department store holding company, House of Fraser, buys Harrods.
1985: The Fayed brothers buy House of Fraser including Harrods Store for £615 million.[11]
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ The London Gazette Publication date:10 January 1826 Issue:18210 Page:57
- ↑ The Times, Wednesday, Sep 02, 1885
- ↑ Tablet - Saturday 23 November 1889
- ↑ The Times, Feb 05, 1929