Backed by American money, Yerkes had arrived in London in 1900, aiming to feather his nest by developing the city’s underground railway system. Having manipulated his way into gaining control of the Metropolitan District Railway, Yerkes audaciously mounted a “rescue” bid for the half-completed Bakerloo line. The Bakerloo had been left stranded when its original founder had committed suicide by swallowing cyanide following his conviction for fraud. Yerkes (the inspiration for Theodore Dreiser’s trilogy on corrupt financiers) subsequently added the Charing Cross, the Euston & Hampstead, and the Great Northern, Piccadilly, and Brompton railways to his portfolio, as well as financing the building of the Lots Road power station to supply the burgeoning electric lines. Discovered to have been falsifying the accounts—his speciality being to pay massive management charges into his private bank account—Yerkes fled to New York, where he died in 1905. He left behind him a network of deep tunnels yet to be completed and, in many circles, a deep-rooted mistrust of American methods of business. It was all close enough for Selfridge to be alarmed at being thought of as anything less than punctilious in his business dealings.
Anxious for the business of retailing to be taken seriously, and partially as his own armor against a potentially hostile environment, Selfridge adopted a formal style, dressing as though he was a merchant banker rather than merely a merchant. He didn’t retreat into frock coats, but the pearl-gray, braided morning coats he had favored in Chicago were now toned down to darker shades of charcoal and black, worn with either striped or plain trousers. He remained faithful to his signature high-cut stiff collars and added a classic white “slip” to frame his waistcoat, and in the evening he was immaculately kitted out in white tie and tails. There was always a sense of formality about his clothes—no one could ever remember seeing him dressed in anything even remotely casual.
Knowing what he wanted to do was all very well. Knowing where to do it was the next challenge. His criteria were space and easy access. Bond Street as a location was fleetingly considered and then rejected as too narrow to suit his craving for scale. Regent Street was dismissed due to restrictions on size imposed by the Crown Estates. He seriously considered the Strand, finding a site that appealed, but negotiations over a lease apparently collapsed. Being a man obsessed with beautiful buildings, the allies he found to search for the ideal site were all acquaintances involved in building and architecture. Among them was the young architect Delissa Joseph, who not only designed stations for the Underground Electric Railway Company but who also had a friend named Samuel Waring—who was interested in meeting Harry Selfridge.
By 1906, Samuel Waring was not only chairman of the leading furniture manufacturer and retail business, Waring & Gillow, but also a director of a specialist building firm called Waring & White, a business run in association with the noted American construction engineer James G. White. For Harry Selfridge, who needed an investment partner, Waring offered an irresistible combination of technical expertise and much-needed cash. Waring & White, under the skillful direction of the architects Charles Mewes and Arthur Davis, had just completed construction of the Ritz Hotel, London’s first steel-framed building. Selfridge, like Waring, was a guest at the hotel’s splendid opening-night dinner, where no doubt they discussed their plans to shake up London’s retail establishment. The two men, both spontaneous, supercharged, insomniac workaholics, quickly—in hindsight perhaps too quickly—agreed on terms. In June that year they formed a company called Selfridge and Waring Ltd., with capital of one million pounds in 100,000 preference shares at five pounds each, and 500,000 ordinary shares at one pound each. Selfridge had 150,006 shares and Waring 150,001.
The partners settled on a site toward what was at that time the “dead end” of Oxford Street, where Waring owned some properties he was prepared to see demolished. Selfridge saw the potential of the site immediately. It was conveniently placed for the mansions of Portman Square, near enough to the fashionable demimonde residents of St. John’s Wood, and ideally placed to capture the public traveling on the Central Line which, having opened six years earlier, now carried a hundred thousand people a day between Shepherd’s Bush and Bank. With stations at Holland Park, Notting Hill Gate, Queen’s Road (renamed Queensway in 1946), Lancaster Gate, Marble Arch, Bond Street, Oxford Circus, and beyond to St. Paul’s, the Central Line was the dream line for West End retailers.
From the very beginning, Selfridge visualized his store as stretching from Duke Street to Orchard Street—as it does today—although he had to wait until 1928 until that happened. But he also hoped it would reach right back to Wigmore Street, forming a double island site. To begin with, however, he had to make do with what they could get, which meant acquiring the leases of the adjoining jumble of small shops, tenement housing, and a much-loved local pub, the Hope Arms, adjacent to some run-down warehouses and a busy stable yard on the corner of Duke Street. Above all, they needed the consent of the landowners, the Portman Estate, as well as planning permission from St. Marylebone Council. There was an enormous furor when plans were announced. From the fuss the locals made—especially those who drank in the Hope Arms—one would have thought Harry Selfridge was demolishing Buckingham Palace. Instead, he planned to build a palace of his own.
Selfridge moved into offices on the opposite side of the road at 415 Oxford Street and started to plan his development. He was never happier than when poring over architectural drawings. When it came to turning them into reality, however, he faced obstacles on a daily basis. He was used to the speed of Chicago where building regulations and permissions were quickly settled with a handshake—albeit one often accompanied by a wad of money. Now he had to face London’s ponderous bureaucrats.
Selfridge was his own project manager, beating a regular path to see both the Chairman of the St. Marylebone Borough Council works committee, Edward Hughes, and his colleague, the district surveyor Mr. Ashbridge. Turning on the full power of his affability and charm, Selfridge impressed them enormously, particularly as he attended each meeting in person. Hughes would later say: “He would bring his persuasive powers to bear and he often succeeded in convincing us that his was the correct view.”
Selfridge’s original concept was a neoclassical six-story building with a dramatic central tower. The first drawings were prepared by a young American trainee architect named Francis Swales, who had studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and served as an intern at the offices of the revered Jean-Louis Pascal. Selfridge, enchanted with the result, carried the drawings with him everywhere. “I fingered them so frequently that they got dog-eared. I had frontal elevations and side elevations and floor maps—I couldn’t bear to be parted from them. The result was I almost wore away the pockets of every suit I possessed.” Copies of the beautiful drawings by Swales were sent to Daniel Burnham in Chicago, who was retained as the originating architect.
Busy completing an impressive new twelve-story store for John Wanamaker in Philadelphia, Burnham was not told that planning restrictions in London at the time forbade any building higher than a modest eighty feet from pavement level. Burnham’s elevations were proudly presented to the council—who promptly rejected them. The reaction back at the great man’s office was predictable. Young Mr. Swales was quickly replaced by the London-based architect Robert Atkinson, who was well versed in the “Chicago School,” having worked in America but who also knew enough about the complexities of London planning regulations not to make any more expensive mistakes. Out went the six floors and tower and in came an eighty-foot-high building with five vast upper floors and a deep basement that would provide additional trading space beneath them. Selfridge now had the best team of architects that money could buy. The trouble was his money was running out.
It had cost a lot—in excess of five hundred thousand dollars—to get to the starting block. Buying out the leases of surrounding properties had been much harder, and taken far longer, than Selfridge had thought possible. It had also been expensive, yet at no time did Samuel Waring
put his hand in his pocket. All the money was Harry’s, and he was feeling the strain. Not that anyone could tell. He smiled, joked, hosted dinners, went to the theater and commuted to America to see his family. The publisher Charles H. Doran met Selfridge several times on transatlantic voyages during that period. Selfridge was delighted to be in the company of a fellow American who listened patiently to his new friend’s woes about archaic planning laws and complex fire regulations.
After what Selfridge himself described as “an interminable time spent in lawyers’ offices” and nearly a year after Selfridge & Waring was formed, the site was finally cleared and excavations began. The foundations were dug deep enough to support extra floors or even his tower should regulations change, and Harry Selfridge dug deeper into his pockets to pay for it all. Still Sam Waring hadn’t parted with a penny. He was even making money from Selfridge, who had by now cashed in one of his last remaining assets, selling his Lake Shore Drive house. Harry had also donated his precious orchid collection to Chicago’s Lincoln Park and had moved his family to England, where they leased Waring’s magnificent country estate, Foots Cray, in Sidcup, Kent.
Waring & Gillow were commissioned to make Harry an imposing desk, but the building program was so slow Selfridge began to doubt he would ever have an office in which to put it. One chilly November day, in a move intended to obtain publicity as much as to inspire progress, Selfridge arranged for a band to play outside the building site. For months now he had talked to the press about his plans—how exciting they were, how big the store was going to be, how daring it was. His “music while you work,” however, succeeded in making headlines of the wrong sort. The police arrived, claiming that the band was creating a public nuisance, and ordered it to stop playing.
For Sam Waring, it was the last straw. From the beginning he had balked at the scale of his partner’s plans. When he first saw the drawings he offended Selfridge by asking if it was to be a shop or a Greek temple. Some of his frustration is understandable. As Harry’s grandiose schemes progressed, the various architects produced over twelve thousand blueprints. For Waring, the project was becoming more trouble than it was worth. The relationship between the two egotistical personalities, which for months had existed at a level of simmering hostility, now collapsed completely, with the inevitable result that Waring abruptly withdrew from the partnership. For Harry Selfridge it was a catastrophe. He was left with a deep hole in the road into which he had already sunk over a million dollars and he simply didn’t have the money to continue alone. As building came to a halt, Selfridge was left looking bleakly at what the press described as “the largest building site London has ever seen.” Disputes between the ex-partners led to litigation that was subsequently settled out of court. Selfridge said little in public, only remarking to a journalist that “We had crossed the Rubicon, and my money largely paid for the ferry.”
London’s established retailers must have been delighted at Selfridge’s embarrassment, but Selfridge himself remained composed, never doubting for a moment that he would find a way through. He carried on compiling data on London and its inhabitants—how they traveled, where they lived, what they read, where they shopped. Huge ledgers in the Selfridges’ archives show how methodically he undertook this research. Every newspaper and magazine is listed with its price, readership, and ownership. Reports were compiled on the stock and sales techniques of rival retailers. He gathered information obsessively, so much so that by the time Selfridge’s opened to the public, there wasn’t much he didn’t know about the demographics of his customer base. He called it “scientific” planning. Today we would call it the cutting edge of market research.
Looking back at the brief years of the Edwardian era, it is all too easy to think life was just a round of country-house parties, endless servants, and extravagant living. To a certain extent it was all of these things. But while the rich led a seemingly charmed life, a great swath of the populace lived in poverty and the middle class had not yet fully succumbed to the temptations of shopping for anything other than what they needed. Much of this was changing fast—and Selfridge knew it. A new group of men were finding their way into the inner circles of power—men such as the grocery tycoon Sir Thomas Lipton, the trade magnate Arthur Sassoon, and the financier Sir Ernest Cassel. There was already talk about the newly elected Liberal government’s plans to “tax the rich,” and intense political discussion about helping the poor. Most significant, elements of the middle class were beginning to break established boundaries. Shopping for them wasn’t just about formal clothes, mourning clothes, maid’s uniforms, and other household necessities. They wanted luggage to take on their travels, fashionable clothes to pack, photographic equipment to record their activities, sporting equipment, and all the things associated with a more mobile life. This was the target audience Selfridge had envisioned for his altogether more egalitarian store. It was also a group many of London’s existing retailers had not yet identified.
No one who met Selfridge at the time would ever have known he was a whisker away from financial disaster. He always put on a show, never more so than when money was tight. The end of 1907 was a difficult time in which to raise money. Wall Street was in disarray due to the collapse of the Knickerbocker Trust Company. In Britain high unemployment and unease on the London Stock Exchange sent share prices tumbling and pushed up the bank rate to 7 percent. There was also a widely held view that London already had enough shops. Harrods, D. H. Evans, Whiteley’s, John Barker, Debenham & Freebody’s, Swan & Edgar, et al. already catered for London’s shopping needs. Could there possibly be room for yet another store?
Buoyed by his almost divine belief in financial salvation, Selfridge believed there was. Relief came just three months later in the shape of the genial tea tycoon John Musker who, along with his partner Julius Drew, had made a fortune through the Home & Colonial grocery chain that had originated in Liverpool. Musker had happily acquired the trappings of wealth, indulging in the expensive hobby of owning and breeding racehorses and acquiring a beautiful house called Shadwell Park in Thetford, Norfolk, where he maintained a fine stud. Musker was happy to invest in what Selfridge eagerly described as “London’s first custom-built department store.” In March 1908, Selfridge & Co. Ltd. was formed, with capital of nine hundred thousand pounds, made up of four hundred thousand preference shares and five hundred thousand ordinary shares at one pound each. Curiously the arrangement was finalized by a deed executed in France over a six-penny stamp, a move reported by the Financial News rather cynically as “saving Mr. Selfridge the sum of two thousand pounds in stamp duties.” Selfridge, a firm believer in the adage “all publicity is good publicity,” ignored the sarcasm.
Builders were back on site within the month. Interestingly, Selfridge continued with Waring & White, for the benefits of the talented Mr. White far outweighed any lasting resentment toward Waring. He also employed the Swedish engineering firm of Kreuger & Toll, along with their innovative structural engineer Sven Bylander—although communicating with the genius “man of steel” was tricky, as he spoke barely a word of English. Ivar Kreuger happily translated for Selfridge, who delighted in keeping the press up to date about progress on what was described as “the first fully steel-framed retail building in England.” Since working with steel was much quicker than with iron, he also anticipated “an exceptionally fast ten-month building program.” Architects today owe a great debt to Harry Selfridge and his team of construction experts. Largely thanks to their endeavors, the antiquated 1894 London Building Act was rewritten to sanction steel-framed construction, and from that point onward steel became the preeminent structural material.
While sightseers thronged Oxford Street to watch the giant crane lifting 125 tons of steel a week, Harry Selfridge set about recruiting his senior management team. He meticulously planned an “organizational chart”—essentially the entire structure of the business at a glance—showing who was responsible for what, from the shop floor right through to the staff restro
oms. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was left to chance. There was to be a staff doctor, a visiting staff dentist, and a “supervisor of staff athletics.” Transport departments were set up with “motor drivers” as well as horse-drawn vans. Glove cleaning (just one of the many services to be offered by the store) would be outsourced. All this and more was recorded on the massive document pinned to the wall in Harry’s temporary office.
Three key posts were filled by Americans: C. W. Steines became controller of merchandise, William Oppenheimer directed the store’s interior layout and fixtures, and Edward Goldsman took charge of the window displays. Before Selfridge, window-dressing in London had been haphazard. Some of the bigger stores had a nominal display manager, but visual presentations were rarely planned to a theme and never color-coordinated. In most cases, it was merely a case of showing the diversity of stock, which often involved putting one of everything in the window. The result, as Andrew Carnegie had said, was “just jumble.”
Exactly as he had done at Marshall Field, Selfridge broke the established practice of folding merchandise away behind glass cabinet doors. Goods were to be freely on show throughout the internal floor space. The store’s windows would tell their own story. There were twenty-one of them, twelve of which contained the largest sheets of plate glass in the world, and as far as Selfridge was concerned, each was a blank canvas waiting to be painted to perfection. Edward Goldsman was allocated enough studio space to house props and given sufficient staff to cope with what was listed on the organizational chart as “flags & scenic work; interior & side aisle displays; main windows; flowers & palms.” The resulting displays—some of which wouldn’t look out of date today—were visual masterpieces that defined the concept of creative window-dressing ever after.
The other senior management executives taken on in those heady, preopening months were all British. Selfridge interviewed them at length, caring less for references than for his own judgment. He had his foibles. He wouldn’t employ men who were too tall or had a skinny neck, and he loathed scruffy shoes or anything less than perfectly manicured hands. Those who passed the test included Frank Chitham, who came from the Scotch House to oversee the launch of men’s “quality ready-for-wear coats and suits”—imported from the USA and in themselves a revelation—while the chief accountant Arthur Youngman was recruited from Debenham’s. The staff manager Percy Best came from Hayes & Candy, and the systems manager (not a modern title as one might think, but actually used by the store in 1909) Alfred Cowper from the “delivery & receiving” sector of Whiteley’s. For all of them, leaving jobs with established firms to join the maverick American was a gamble, though perhaps less of one in the case of Whiteley’s, where the once great business was in disarray following the founder’s much-publicized death earlier that year, William Whiteley having been murdered by a deranged young man named Horace Rayner, who claimed to be his illegitimate son. Given Mr. Whiteley’s habit of exercising droit de seigneur over the female staff, the surprise is that there was only the one claimant for paternity.
Shopping, Seduction & Mr. Selfridge Page 9