The spread of department stores in provincial England, c.1872-1932

"Department stores are often portrayed as one of the key developments in the history of retailing in western society. They lie at the heart of our conception of a nineteenth-century retail revolution, transforming experiences of shopping and the geography of the high street, helping to define the modern city and modern urban life. However, analyses have predominantly focused on the growth and experience of fashionable department stores in London’s West End. This overshadows the development of such shops in the provinces, especially away from the large regional centres or resort towns. The result is that we know relatively little about the origins and spread of department stores across the country: Lancaster (1995) provides a picture of the process of growth, but not its detailed geography, especially as it affected the vast majority of ‘ordinary’ towns. Many fundamental questions about the provincial department store, therefore, remain unasked, let alone answered. Where were the estimated 150-200 stores in 1910 located? When had they emerged as department stores, and by what processes? Was there a process of diffusion out from London and/or down the urban hierarchy; did department stores emerge independently in different locations, and were certain types of town favoured (for example resorts or county towns)? Merely raising these issues serves to problematise the pivotal role accorded to the department store – questioning the chronology and geography of their influence on retailing practices in small and medium-sized towns. Answering them in a comprehensive manner is a different matter, and clearly beyond the scope of a single paper. My aim here is rather less ambitious, but offers a foundation upon which more detailed analyses might be built. Drawing on a comprehensive survey of entries in Kelly’s Post Office directories, it reproduces the changing geographies of English provincial department stores from their early years in the 1870s to what is often seen as their heyday in the 1930s. Nothwithstanding problems of definition – no entry uses the term ‘department store’ – this analysis offers a unique insight into the growth and distribution of this key retail innovation. Yet the organic growth and modest size of many provincial department stores, especially those outside the major centres, questions their revolutionary nature. In many instances, small department stores can be seen as the product of a gradual accretion of services and premises: more retail evolution than revolution."