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===Origins in England, 1700s=== One of the first department stores may have been Bennett's in [[Derby]], first established as an [[ironmonger]] (hardware shop) in 1734.<ref name="Bennetts"/><ref name="derbyshire">{{cite news|author=Natalie Loughenbury|date=6 January 2010|title=Bennetts Irongate, Derby Celebrates Its 275th Anniversary|work=Derbyshire Life|publisher=Bennets|url=https://www.bennettsofderby.co.uk/history/|access-date=6 September 2021}}</ref> It continued trading in the same building until its administation and closure in 2019.<ref name="Bennetts">{{cite news |title=Bennetts: Green light for plan to transform former Derby store |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-67588057 |access-date=20 May 2025 |publisher=BBC}}</ref> However, the first reliably dated department store to be established, was [[Harding, Howell & Co.]], which opened in 1796 on [[Pall Mall, London|Pall Mall]], London.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://hibiscus-sinensis.com/regency/shoppingmalls.htm|title=Regency England shopping arcades exchanges and bazaars|website=hibiscus-sinensis.com}}</ref> The oldest department store chain may be [[Debenhams]], which was established in 1778 and closed in 2021. It is the longest trading defunct British retailer. An observer writing in ''[[Ackermann's Repository]]'', a British periodical on contemporary taste and fashion, described the enterprise in 1809 as follows: <blockquote>The house is one hundred and fifty feet in length from front to back, and of proportionate width. It is fitted up with great taste, and is divided by glazed partitions into four departments, for the various branches of the extensive business, which is there carried on. Immediately at the entrance is the first department, which is exclusively appropriated to the sale of furs and fans. The second contains articles of haberdashery of every description, silks, muslins, lace, gloves, &etc. In the third shop, on the right, you meet with a rich assortment of jewelry, ornamental articles in ormolu, French clocks, &etc.; and on the left, with all the different kinds of perfumery necessary for the toilette. The fourth is set apart for millinery and dresses; so that there is no article of female attire or decoration, but what may be here procured in the first style of elegance and fashion. This concern has been conducted for the last twelve years by the present proprietors who have spared neither trouble nor expense to ensure the establishment of a superiority over every other in Europe, and to render it perfectly unique in its kind.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/repositoryofarts109acke|title=The Repository of arts, literature, commerce, manufactures, fashions and politics|first=Rudolph|last=Ackermann|date=3 August 1809|publisher=London : Published by R. Ackermann ... Sherwood & Co. and Walker & Co. ... and [[Simpkin & Marshall]] ...|via=Internet Archive}}</ref></blockquote> This venture is described as having all of the basic characteristics of the department store; it was a public retail establishment offering a wide range of [[consumer good]]s in different departments. Jonathan Glancey for the [[BBC]] writes: <blockquote>Harding, Howell & Co was focused on the needs and desires of fashionable women. Here, at last women were free to browse and shop, safely and decorously, away from home and from the company of men. These, for the main part, were newly affluent middle-class women, their good fortune β and the department store itself β nurtured and shaped by the [[Industrial Revolution]]. This was transforming life in London and the length and breadth of Britain at a dizzying pace on the back of energetic free trade, fecund invention, steam and sail, and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of expendable cheap labour.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.com/culture/bespoke/story/20150326-a-history-of-the-department-store/index.html|title=A history of the department store|website=BBC Culture|access-date=15 September 2019}}</ref></blockquote> [[File:Harrod's (50718173793).jpg|thumb|right|[[Harrods]] illuminated exterior at night in Knightsbridge, London]] This pioneering shop was closed down in 1820 when the [[business partnership]] was dissolved. All the major [[High Street]]s in British cities had flourishing department stores by the mid-or late nineteenth century. Increasingly, women became the main customers.<ref>Alison Adburgham, ''Shops and Shopping, 1880β1914: Where and in What Matter the Well-Dressed Englishwoman Bought Her Clothes'' (2nd ed. 1981)''</ref> [[Kendals]] (formerly Kendal Milne & Faulkner) in Manchester lays claim to being one of the first department stores and is still known to many of its customers as Kendal's, despite its 2005 name change to [[House of Fraser]]. The Manchester institution dates back to 1836 but had been trading as Watts Bazaar since 1796.<ref name="PB80">{{cite book|last=Parkinson-Bailey|first=John|title=Manchester an architectural history|publisher=Manchester University Press|location=Manchester|year=2000|pages=80β81|isbn=0-7190-5606-3}}</ref> At its zenith the store had buildings on both sides of Deansgate linked by a subterranean passage "Kendals Arcade" and an art nouveau tiled food hall. The store was especially known for its emphasis on quality and style over low prices giving it the nickname "the Harrods of the North", although this was due in part to Harrods acquiring the store in 1919. [[Harrods]] of London can be traced back to 1834, though the current store was built between 1894 and 1905. Opened in 1830, [[Austins (department store)|Austins]] in Derry remained in operation as the world's oldest independent department store until its closure in 2016.<ref>{{cite news |title=Historic Derry department store Austins closes after 186 years |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/business/retail-and-services/historic-derry-department-store-austins-closes-after-186-years-1.2565229 |access-date=15 April 2024 |newspaper=The Irish Times}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Task Force for iconic Edwardian Austins building in Derry city centre established |url=https://www.derryjournal.com/heritage-and-retro/heritage/task-force-for-iconic-edwardian-austins-building-in-derry-city-centre-established-3939407 |access-date=15 April 2024 |work=Derry Journal}}</ref> [[Lewis's]] of Liverpool operated from 1856 to 2010. The world's first [[Santa's workshop|Christmas grotto]] opened in Lewis's in 1879, entitled 'Christmas Fairyland'.<ref>{{cite news |title=Liverpool's record breaking Christmas grotto beloved by generations |url=https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/nostalgia/liverpools-record-breaking-christmas-grotto-25517874 |access-date=15 April 2024 |work=Liverpool Echo}}</ref> [[Liberty (department store)|Liberty & Co.]] in London's [[West End of London|West End]] gained popularity in the 1870s for selling Oriental goods.<ref>Iarocci, L., ''Visual Merchandising: The Image of Selling'', Ashgate Publishing, 2013, p. 128</ref> In 1889, [[Oscar Wilde]] wrote "Liberty's is the chosen resort of the artistic shopper".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wilde |first1=Oscar |title=The Woman's World ..., Volume 2 |date=1889 |publisher=Cassell and Company|page=6}}</ref>
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