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Whiteley's met strong opposition from smaller tradesmen, and also from the local authorities over its grand building plans, and several bad fires in the 1880s may have been caused by opponents. Business nonetheless prospered, aided by a delivery service extending up to 25 miles (40 km), and in
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The first store – described as "an immense symposium of the arts and industries of the nation and of the world" – was devastated in an enormous fire in 1887, one of the largest fires in London's history. This was the last of four fires that had devastated the business
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By 1890 over 6,000 staff were employed in the business, most of them living in company-owned male and female dormitories, having to obey 176 rules and working 7 am to 11 pm, six days a week. Whiteley's also bought massive farmlands and erected food-processing factories to provide produce
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Dressmaking was started in 1868, and a house agency and refreshment room, the first ventures outside drapery, opened in 1872. By then 622 people were employed on the premises and a further 1,000 outside. Whiteley's started selling food in 1875, and a building and decorating department was added in
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In 1907, William
Whiteley was murdered by Horace George Rayner, who claimed to be his illegitimate son, "Cecil Whiteley". After his death, the board including two of Whiteley's sons allowed the leases on the various Westbourne Grove properties to lapse and moved into a new purpose built store on
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purchased
Whiteleys for a fee of £1,750,000. In the late 1970s UDS held a market survey to find out if the losses of the business were down to customer satisfaction. The survey came back positive: it proved that Whiteleys did not have enough customers.
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and decided to open his shop there. He started his business in 1863 by opening a Fancy Goods shop at 31 Westbourne Grove, employing two girls to serve and a boy to run errands. Later one of the girls, Harriet Sarah Hill, became his wife.
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Hill, and some days later when he and his brother Cyril were allowed to visit
Westbourne Grove, that, "The long front of the shop was a sorry sight with part of the wall fallen and the rest blackened."
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In the 1950s the chairman Sir Sydney Harold Gillet announced that the store was too big for its turnover and converted the upper floors of the store into office space. These were used by
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Whiteley's was to rise again like the
Phoenix from the fire and was soon rebuilt, but later moved from Westbourne Grove to Queensway. When the
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The department store closed down in 1981 remaining empty until the building was purchased by a firm called the
Whiteleys Partnership in 1986.
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Affairs in
Foreign Lands; the burning of Whiteley's great establishment. The loss estimated at $ 2,500,000 – incendiarism suspected.
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1876. This proved to be particularly profitable, as the large stuccoed houses in the area needed regular repainting.
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1887 the store was described as 'an immense symposium of the arts and industries of the nation and of the world'.
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in recognition of his part in the LEO Computers story. Esso
Petroleum also rented some of the office space.
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from 1882. In 1887 disaster struck and the store in
Westbourne Grove burnt down. In his autobiography,
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for the store and for staff catering. In 1896 it earned an unsolicited Royal
Warrant from
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in 1863. By 1867 it had expanded to a row of shops containing 17 separate departments.
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on 21 November 1911, it was claimed to be the largest shop in the world.
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William
Whiteley Limited also operated a warehouse removals business in
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in 1863. The business grew to include a warehouse removals business.
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London was expanding rapidly in the 1860s and after considering
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The original Whiteley's department store was created by
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History of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
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in the presence of thousands opened the new store in
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Grade II listed buildings in the City of Westminster
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433:Whiteley's Folly: The Life and Death of a Salesman
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488:Department store buildings in the United Kingdom
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483:Defunct department stores of the United Kingdom
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508:Tourist attractions in the City of Westminster
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153:was a large British retail company founded by
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174:he turned his attention to
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317:on a number of occasions.
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431:Stratmann, Linda (2004).
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286:United Drapery Stores
143:United Drapery Stores
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329:Whiteleys Bayswater
118:Number of locations
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370:The New York Times
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334:Warehouse removals
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442:978-0-7524-9526-2
383:Drawn from Memory
230:Drawn From Memory
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321:Operations
256:Relocation
128:Key people
533:Bayswater
250:Queensway
176:Bayswater
172:Islington
110:Bayswater
411:13 April
284:In 1961
238:Highgate
166:Location
44:Industry
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293:Closure
197:drapery
161:History
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88:Defunct
80:Founder
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315:FA Cup
138:Parent
47:Retail
52:Genre
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
