ARE YOU BEING SERVED?
When William Whiteley boasted that his London department store sold “everything from a pin to an elephant”, a clergyman decided to put him to the test. The elephant was duly delivered – compliments of William Whiteley – to the front garden of the clergyman’s rectory. It was the end of the 19th century, an era of confidence, commerce and modernity. More leisure time and dramatically improved transport networks allowed retail to flourish. And no type of shop was better placed to service this new culture of commerce than the department store.
Many modern-day department stores have become cultural institutions, but these household names have far humbler origins, in a time when shopping was very different from today.
Shopping has existed for as long as people have needed to buy and sell goods, but it wasn’t until the Georgian era that high-street retailing came to the fore. The 18th century saw the emergence of
