Stewart & McDonald Limited

Stewart & McDonald was established by Robertson Buchanan Stewart and John MacDonald in 1826 as a small wholesale drapery warehouse in Glasgow, Scotland. Hugh Fraser, later of Arthur & Fraser, retailers, Glasgow, had previously been a lace buyer to Stewart & McDonald and rose to be a manager in 1849.

In 1859, the founders' sons, Ninian Bannatyne Stewart and Alexander McDonald, were assumed as partners. After John McDonald's death, circa 1860, Robertson Stewart's eldest son Alexander Bannatyne Stewart joined the firm. Robertson Stewart died in 1871 and following Ninian's retirement in 1874, Alexander Stewart became the senior partner and the former cashier, Archibald Crombie, also became a partner.

Alexander Stewart died in 1880 and was succeeded as a partner by the founder's grandson John R. Stewart, and later, in 1882, by Robert Keddie, manager of several of the principal departments. Robert Keddie initiated the establishment of several supply factories and the improvement of the shop frontage on Buchanan Street, Glasgow.

In 1900, the firm was registered as a limited liability company under the name of Stewart & McDonald Ltd. with registered offices at 21 Buchanan Street, Glasgow. In 1913 the retail section of Stewart & McDonald Ltd. was hived off from the larger wholesale business as a separate private limited liability company, McDonalds Ltd.

McDonalds Ltd. was made a public limited liability company on 25 August 1920, and in 1922, acquired the business of E. J. Clarke, Harrogate, Yorkshire, England, a family drapery business.
In April 1951, the business was purchased by House of Fraser Ltd., department store retailers in Glasgow. The business continued as a subsidiary of House of Fraser Ltd until 1966 when it was merged with Wylie & Lochhead Ltd., a neighbouring furnishing store, acquired by House of Fraser Ltd. in 1957. Together the stores traded as McDonalds, Wylie & Lochhead. In 1975 this merger was taken a stage further by the amalgamation of the shops Fraser Sons & Co. and McDonalds, Wylie & Lochhead as a single department store, Frasers, on the west side of Buchanan Street, Glasgow. The site of the store still existed in 2002.

By Paul Green

The name in the overprint at the top of this post is STEWART & MCDONALD; after roughly 1894 the name was written as STEWART & M'DONALD, a practice that continued to at least 1912.

Joseph Lucas Limited

The company was founded by Joseph Lucas in 1860 with his son Harry, joining around 1872, aged 17. Initially called Joseph Lucas & Son, from 1882 it was based in Little King Street, later Great King Street, Birmingham. At first it made general pressed metal merchandise including plant pot holders, scoops and buckets, and in 1875 lamps for ships; later moving into oil and acetylene lamps for bicycles from 1879. In 1902, what by then had become Joseph Lucas Ltd., incorporated in 1898, started making automotive electrical components such as magnetos, alternators, windscreen wipers, horns, lighting, wiring, and starter motors.

The company started its main growth in 1914 with a contract to supply the Morris Motor Company with electrical equipment.

After the First World War the firm expanded rapidly, branching out into products such as braking systems and diesel systems for the automotive industry and hydraulic actuators and electronic engine control systems for the aerospace industry. In 1926 they gained an exclusive contract with Austin.

Around 1930, Lucas and Smiths established a trading agreement to avoid competition in each others markets.

During the 1920s and 1930s Lucas grew rapidly by taking over a number of their competitors such as Rotax and C.A.Vandervell (CAV). During WW2 Lucas were engaged by Rover to work on the combustion and fuel systems for the Whittle jet engine project making the burners, this came about due to their experience of sheet metal manufacture and CAV for the pumps and injectors. In the 1950s they started a semiconductor manufacturing plant to make rectifiers and transistors.

Starting 1996 Lucas was brought and sold by a number of companies this ended with Eltra Lighting Ltd acquiring the license from TRW to use the Lucas name on products in the UK and Europe, this purchase sees the familiar green and white Lucas name return to the car spares shops shelves again.

By Paul Green

Dawbarn & Sons

Dawbarn and Sons Ltd. have been established over 100 years. Originally sail makers and ships chandlers, Dawbarn and Sons diversified into tarpaulins and covers for road transport in the 1950s.

Today Dawbarn and Sons are the UK's leading manufacturer of bulk vehicle sheeting systems and fabricators of canvas and plastic goods for road transport, agriculture, industry, leisure and sports.

By Paul Green

Bevington & Sons

Bevington (1772) was the co-founder of the Neckinger Leather Mills in Bermondsey Surrey, at one time the largest leather factory in Europe.

The photograph below was taken in 1862 at Neckinger Mills. It shows John W. Bevington, James B. Bevington, Samuel Bevington, and Horatio Harris, another of the partners or owners.


Neckinger Mill was originally a paper mill where many new inventions were made, including extracting ink from recycled paper. The building is best remembered however, as the biggest leather mills, owned by Bevingtons & Sons from the 1800s to 1980. The mills covered a vast area including not only the existing building but the whole area around the Neckinger Estate. Here they produced light leathers such as Morocco leather and seal-skins for shoes and fancy goods. During WWII, women played a key role in this process, the fish oils they used during the glazing process apparently enhanced the beauty in Bermondsey women's skin and hair.


Bevington’s re-located from Bermondsey to Leicester in the 1980s where it is now a specialist division of Milton Leicester Ltd., producing hand-crafted leather goods.

By Paul Green

Selfridges & Co.

Selfridges, also known as Selfridges & Co., is a chain of high-end department stores in the United Kingdom. It was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge. The flagship store in London's Oxford Street is the second largest shop in the UK (after Harrods) and was opened on 15 March 1909. More recently, three other stores have been opened; in Trafford, Greater Manchester (1998), in Manchester City Centre's Exchange Square (2002) and in the Bullring, Birmingham (2003). For 14 years, the store belonged to Liverpool's now-defunct Lewis's retail group.

Gordon Selfridge was born in 1858 in Ripon, Wisconsin, and in 1879 joined Field, Leiter and Company (later to become Marshall Field & Company), where he worked for the famous Chicago retailer. He worked his way up through the firm, married into the prominent Buckingham family, and amassed the fortune with which he built his new London store.

Selfridge's innovative marketing led to his success. He tried to make shopping a fun adventure instead of a chore. He put merchandise on display so customers could examine it, put the highly profitable perfume counter front-and-centre on the ground floor, and established policies that made it safe and easy for customers to shop — techniques that have been adopted by modern department stores the world over.

Either Selfridge or Marshall Field is popularly held to have coined the phrase "the customer is always right", and he did use it regularly in his extensive advertising.

He attracted shoppers with educational and scientific exhibits. He was himself interested in education and science, and believed that the displays would introduce potential new customers to Selfridges, generating both immediate and long-term sales.

In 1909, after the first cross-Channel flight, Louis Blériot's monoplane was exhibited at Selfridges, where it was seen by 12,000 people. The first public demonstration of television was by John Logie Baird from the first floor of Selfridges from 1–27 April 1925.

The provincial stores were sold to the John Lewis Partnership in the 1940s. The remaining Oxford Street store was acquired in 1951 by the Liverpool-based Lewis's chain of department stores, which was in turn taken over in 1965 by the Sears Group owned by Charles Clore. In March 1998 Selfridges had acquired a new logo, at use to the present, which came in tandem with the opening of the Manchester Trafford Centre store and Selfridges demerger from Sears.


In 2003, the chain was acquired by Canada's Galen Weston for £598 million. Weston, a retailing expert who is the owner of department store chains such as Holt Renfrew and Brown Thomas as well as major supermarket chains in Canada, has chosen to invest in renovation of the Oxford Street store, rather than to carry out planned expansion to Leeds, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Bristol, and Glasgow, despite Selfridges owning a site in the latter city.

By Paul Green

Cook, Son & Co.

Cook, Son & Co. was one of the largest British wholesale clothing traders and drapers of the late 19th century and early 20th century.

The firm was created by William Cook in 1819. In 1822 he went into partnership with his brother James and in 1825 with Mr. Gladstones. The firm moved to St Paul's Church Yard in 1843.

William died in 1869. His son, Francis Cook, was head of the firm until his death in 1901. The company continued as a family business.

The company concentrated on warehousing and distribution rather than manufacturing. It employed Commercial travelers who exploited the recently built railway network to make sales by visiting retailers with samples of the products.

By Paul Green

A. W. Gamage Ltd.

Gamages was a department store founded by Mr. A. W. Gamage at 116-128 Holborn in Central London.
The store closed in 1972, but prior to that had been unusual inasmuch as its premises were away from the main Oxford Street shopping area, being on the edge of the City of London at Holborn.

Arthur Walter Gamage was the son of a Herefordshire farmer who was apprenticed to a London draper in St Paul's churchyard. In 1878, at the age of 21 and having saved £40 (equivalent to £2,500 today) he decided to set up his own shop, in partnership with Frank Spain. Between them they raised the £88 necessary to lease and refit a small watch repair shop in Holborn. The owner assured them that a hosiery shop would do well in the area. The frontage was no more than five feet and above it Gamage hung his motto "Tall Oaks from Little Acorns Grow."

The partners lived in the back room of the shop and allowed themselves no more than fourteen shillings a week for their living expenses. Gamage insisted on selling everything cheaper than anywhere else and gradually crowds began to visit the shop, even though the area was "unfashionable". By the end of the first year trading had grown to £1,632. In 1881, Gamage bought Spain out and began to expand the premises by buying the small properties that surrounded his original shop until, by the end of the decade, most of the block between Leather Lane and Hatton Garden was in his hands.


Because of the piecemeal expansion, his Department Store ended up as a maze of rooms, steps, passages and ramps which Gamage now called the People's Popular Emporium. Children and adults alike experienced something of an adventure as they wandered through the warren in search of bargains. It offered a very wide selection of goods, including haberdashery, furniture, sporting goods, gardening supplies and utensils, camping equipment, magic tricks, and clothing.

Gamage went on to become the official supplier of uniforms to the Boy Scout movement and continued to expand. A large zoological department and a toy department were joined by a motor department where one could purchase a motor car and all the equipment required for running it.

Gamages also had a large mail-order business and issued a wide range of catalogues covering its different departments as well as large comprehensive catalogues. In 1911, for example, 49 pages of his 900 page catalogue were devoted to bicycles.

The Holborn premises closed in March 1972 and disappeared in the massive redevelopment scheme which now occupies the site. The frontage on Holborn that was Gamages was in 2009 occupied by a W. H. Smith stationery store and the offices above are now occupied by French technology specialists Steria.

By Paul Green