Daunton M. The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, Volume 3: 1840-1950
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In addition to the beginnings of a ‘multiple revolution’, two other important
forms of large-scale retailing emerged during the mid-late nineteenth century,
further intensifying the trend towards functional and geographical specialisation
of retail outlets. The Co-operative movement experienced meteoric growth
during the second half of the nineteenth century and the Edwardian period, its
retail turnover rising from £. million in to £ million in .
Meanwhile its (almost exclusively working-class) membership had increased
nearly sixfold over the thirty-five years to , to over million.
43
Based on a
structure of autonomous local Retail Societies, associated with each other
through the Co-operative Union and the two Co-operative Wholesale Societies
(English and Scottish), the Co-op’s influence was strongest in the North and in
Scotland. Their trade concentrated on foodstuffs and other household items in
mass demand.
Attempts at retail cooperation can be traced back to the eighteenth century,
the number of Co-operative Societies becoming substantial during the s.
44
However, few Co-operatives were of long duration prior to the s, their sub-
sequent success being largely based on the trading methods popularised by the
Rochdale Pioneers during the mid-nineteenth century. These included the dis-
tribution of any surplus as ‘dividends’ to members, in proportion to their pur-
chases. Most Retail Societies had only a handful of branches, functioning as small
multiples but benefiting from the greater cost advantages accruing from central-
isation of purchasing via the Wholesale Societies. Average shop size was fairly
large by contemporary standards, the Co-op’s policy being to avoid minor shop-
ping areas.
Department stores represented an attempt at increased scale primarily via
expansion in the size of individual stores. Their origins have been traced to a
number of ‘monster shops’ which had emerged in London and other large cities
by the s (mainly confined to the drapery trades), or to even earlier antece-
dents.
45
By the middle of the century the largest London-based monster shops
had several hundred employees, while a handful had developed into department
stores in the modern sense of the term, with four or more departments selling
different classes of goods.
46
During the third quarter of the nineteenth century
the number of department stores grew substantially, mainly due to established
drapery and clothing shops adding further departments.
The rise of the department store was intimately linked with the emergence
of modern consumerism in Britain, a phenomenon which has been dated (con-
Peter Scott
43
Ibid., p. .
44
M. Purvis, ‘Co-operative retailing in Britain’, in Benson and Shaw, eds., Evolution of Retail
Systems, p. .
45
Shaw, ‘Evolution’, p. ; P. Glennie, ‘Consumption, consumerism and urban form: historical
perspectives,’ Urban Studies, (), .
46
Shaw, ‘Evolution’, pp. –.
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troversially) to the s.
47
Its emergence at this time was a function of sharply
rising living standards and the appearance of mass-produced consumer durables
such as factory-made furniture, sales of which were boosted by the growth of
hire-purchase facilities. While department stores had originally emphasised low
prices, by the s they competed mainly in terms of their range of goods,
quality of service and amenities. People were able to see and inspect a vast selec-
tion of new products, attractively displayed in elegant surroundings. In addition,
they could enjoy facilities such as tea rooms and restaurants, hairdressing salons,
rest and club rooms, toilet and washing facilities,
48
the department store consti-
tuting an important leisure outlet in its own right.
During the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the years before
there was a substantial growth in department store retailing in large urban
centres. Store size grew, culminating with the construction of Gordon
Selfridge’s massive Oxford Street store, from . Comprehensive store rede-
velopment or construction represented the last phase of pre-war department
store growth; prior to most department stores expanded via successive
extensions, either amalgamating or rebuilding adjoining properties.
49
Industrial property experienced a slower trend towards functional and, espe-
cially, geographical specialisation (within particular urban centres) than was the
case with offices and shops. As late as the mid-nineteenth century a very wide
variety of goods were still produced in shops and workrooms rather than facto-
ries. However, during the second half of the century factory production
expanded to include most areas of manufacturing, due to advances in mechan-
isation (accelerated by the development of cheap steel) and improvements in
transport and communications. Before many market towns had few firms
employing a dozen or more people; twenty years later there were frequently
several firms employing hundreds in multi-storey, steam-powered, factories.
50
New and small manufacturers were often able to rent space in such factories.
The practice of renting ‘room and power’ or ‘space and turning’ was common
in the North and Midlands from the eighteenth century, being especially impor-
tant in the textile industry. In some trades and parts of the country it flourished
up to the First World War.
51
The period between and the First World War saw the zenith of the
multi-storey factory. During this period steel-framed factories of four, five or
The evolution of Britain’s urban built environment
47
Shaw, ‘The European scene’, p. . Some commentators have argued that a ‘consumer revolu-
tion’ could be identified in Britain as early as the late eighteenth century; see N. McKendrick,
‘The consumer revolution in eighteenth-century England’, in N. McKendrick, J. Brewer and
J. H. Plumb, eds., The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialisation of Eighteenth-Century
England (London, ).
48
Winstanley, ‘Concentration and competition’, p. .
49
Shaw, ‘Evolution’, pp. –.
50
B. Trinder, The Making of the Industrial Landscape (London, ), p. .
51
D. A. Farnie, The English Cotton Industry and the World Market, – (Oxford, ), p. .
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
even six stories were erected in Lancashire (preceding the adoption of steel-
framed technology in British office buildings).
52
Steel frames allowed not only
larger buildings, but also more generous fenestration, increasing the amount of
light available for their workforce. However, the advent of the internal combus-
tion engine was soon to make the multi-storey factory obsolete, as is discussed
below.
During the nineteenth century factory development occurred on a largely
unplanned basis, where access to power, raw materials, or transport favoured
location. Sites adjacent to railways, canals, docks or rivers did sometimes develop
as almost exclusively industrial areas, especially at points where rail and water
networks intersected, but grew in an unplanned, evolutionary manner. The need
for factories to be close to their workforce severely limited the segregation of
industrial and residential areas, though transport improvements towards the end
of the century facilitated separation.
In addition to the development of distinct office, shop and industrial building
forms, purpose-built premises connected with catering and entertainment had
also begun to appear in significant numbers during the nineteenth century.
Specially designed gentlemen’s clubs were developed from around , while
the coming of the railways led to the construction of purpose-built hotels from
the s.
53
The development of restaurant chains was initiated around the
s, roughly concurrent with the emergence of the property company sector
(both stimulated by legislation to facilitate limited liability incorporation).
54
There was also a considerable expansion in the number of institutional buildings
during the nineteenth century, such as hospitals, workhouses, town halls and
prisons. Over the century to the diversity and specialisation of Britain’s
urban built environment had increased enormously, though the pace of change
was to accelerate further after the First World War.
(iii)
The interwar period saw important changes in the character of Britain’s com-
mercial property sector. The development of motorised transport encouraged
both an intensification of specialisation within urban centres and the suburban-
isation of residential and industrial buildings. High street areas became domi-
nated by large-scale retailers, industrial estates mushroomed around the fringes
of the London conurbation and a truly nationally based commercial property
market emerged.
Peter Scott
52
Trinder, The Making, p. .
53
Robert Thorne, ‘Places of refreshment in the nineteenth-century city’, in A. D. King, ed.,
Buildings and Society (London, ), p. .
54
Ibid., p. .
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The pace of change in the property market was set by the multiple retailers.
They represented the most rapidly expanding sector of retailing, while other
large-scale retailers also gained market share at the expense of independent local
traders, as illustrated in Table .. The reasons behind the multiples’ rapid
growth mainly represented the continuation of trends which had become appar-
ent before – rising living standards, economies of scale with regard to the
expansion of average shop size and scale economies from operating a large
branch network, particularly in purchasing, transport and advertising. Motor
transport – the car for the middle classes and the motor bus for the working
classes – provided a further boost to their growth, by increasing the accessibility
of town centres. Property-related financial innovation also facilitated expansion,
as is discussed below.
This period saw a change in the character of the multiples. While the early
food and footwear chains had sold only a very limited range of goods, empha-
sising cut prices, the range of stock carried by the interwar multiples increased
substantially, while the price gap between them and other retailers narrowed.
This was influenced, to some extent, by the spread of resale price maintenance
(RPM). Originating in the s, RPM agreements controlled the prices of
almost per cent of goods purchased by consumers in .
55
RPM slowed the
process of growth in average shop size, as large-scale retailers, unable to under-
cut independent traders on price, were forced to compete in terms of conven-
ience by increasing their branch network. For some goods, such as chocolate and
The evolution of Britain’s urban built environment
55
Report of the Committee on Resale Price Maintenance (Cmd , ), p. , cited in J. B.
Cullingworth, Town and Country Planning in Britain, th edn (London, ), p. ; Winstanley,
‘Concentration and competition’, p. .
Table . The distribution of national retail sales –
Proportion of total sales (%)
Type of retailer
Co-operatives .–..–..–..–..–.
Department stores .–..–..–..–..–.
Multiples
a
.–..–..–..–..–.
Other
b
.–..–..–..–..–.
a
Multiples with ten or more branches.
b
The ‘Other’ category is a residual, the difference between estimates for the defined
categories and the total volume of retail trade.
Source: J. B. Jefferys, Retail Trading in Britain, – (Cambridge, ), p. .
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
tobacco, manufacturers imposed RPM as a conscious attempt to maintain a large
number of outlets (an important element of their marketing strategy) by assur-
ing retailers’ margins.
56
One of the main avenues of interwar expansion for the multiples was the
variety store, Woolworth’s and Marks and Spencer being the outstanding exam-
ples. Variety stores were characterised by large premises (sometimes covering
several floors), a wide variety of goods, clearly marked low prices and a low level
of service, anticipating the growth of self-service retailing after . Like the
department stores, the variety chains placed a large range of products before the
customer, allowing them to be inspected without any obligation to purchase.
They thus contributed to the growth of the more relaxed, leisure-orientated,
form of shopping that had been pioneered by the department store.
Accounting for a negligible proportion of the multiples’turnover in , the
variety stores’ share grew to almost per cent by .
57
This was partly the
result of a ‘democratisation’ of shopping, which allowed their cheap manufac-
tured consumer goods to appeal to a wide range of consumers. As P. R. Chappell
of W. H. Smith’s Advertising Department stated, ‘This is an age of cheapness
and all classes – even the Queen herself – have patronised Woolworths.’
58
This
‘democratisation’ was partly the result of the influence of the cinema and other
developments in mass media and entertainment, together with rising living stan-
dards for those in work.
The variety chains grew both by extending the number of their branches and
by substantially expanding average store size; by the average employment
per variety store branch was over seven times the average for all other multiples.
59
This trend towards increasing average store size was also true, to a lesser extent,
for other multiples during this period. The rising cost of developing their ever-
growing premises, together with increasing competition for ‘prime’ locations,
led to a switch from renting to ownership as the dominant form of shop tenure
among the multiples. This further increased the costs of store acquisition, though
the multiples soon evolved methods of financing both store costs, and their
general expansion, by capitalising on the value of their premises.
During the s this was achieved by using premises as collateral for mort-
gages or overdrafts. However, the maximum sum that could be raised by this
means was generally restricted to two-thirds of a property’s value, limiting the
long-term growth which could be generated via such finance.
60
During the
s a number of major retailers made use of a financing technique which real-
ised the full purchase and development cost of stores, the sale and leaseback. This
Peter Scott
56
H. Mercer, Constructing a Competitive Order: The Hidden History of British Antitrust Policies
(Cambridge, ), p. .
57
Jefferys, Retail Trading, p. .
58
C. Wilson, First with the News (London, ), p. .
59
Jefferys, Retail Trading, p. .
60
See P. Scott, ‘Learning to multiply: the property market and the growth of multiple retailing in
Britain, –’, Business History, (), –.
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involved the sale of stores to long-term investors, such as insurance companies,
who would simultaneously grant the vendor a long ( or year) lease on the
property, at a rent typically yielding between and per cent of the sum raised
by the sale. Stores were sold at a price calculated to cover their full purchase,
development and fitting costs, repaying the retailer’s entire outlay on each prop-
erty and allowing expansion to be almost entirely financed using this technique.
61
Some multiples preferred to rent, rather than buy, premises when they located
in suburban centres. However, they still obtained considerable financial advan-
tages over small-scale retailers. To ensure the success of new suburban shopping
parades developers found it necessary to attract a well-known multiple which
would take the best located store. In return for locating there, and thus increas-
ing the desirability of the remaining shops, and the overall value of the develop-
ment, expanding retailers such as Woolworth’s and Tesco were able to secure
substantial concessions from the developer, such as a very low initial rent, a five-
year rent-free period, or free shop-fittings.
62
During the interwar years the expansion of the Co-operative Societies con-
tinued, membership rising from . million in to . million in .
63
The
Co-ops extended their territorial range into the Midlands and South, where
they had hitherto been only patchily represented. They also partially reversed
their policy of operating only from large shops, to meet the demands of consu-
mers who were now making more frequent grocery purchases. Meanwhile, the
potential for scale economies was increased by the amalgamation of Co-opera-
tive Societies. The challenge of expanded size was met by organisational
improvements, involving the introduction of techniques developed by the multi-
ples.
64
However, the Co-ops proved relatively unsuccessful in expanding into
non-food retailing. Their local structure prevented the establishment of nation-
ally based specialist Co-operative societies dealing in non-food trades, such as
footwear, severely limiting the potential for scale economies. Meanwhile, they
experienced difficulties with regard to price-maintained lines, due to a boycott
by suppliers who claimed that the dividend constituted a breach of RPM.
The number of department stores in Britain increased from about –
stores in to about – in .
65
There was no significant increase in
the size of new department stores compared with their Edwardian counterparts,
though there were substantial improvements in layout, including the more wide-
spread use of lifts and escalators. A series of amalgamations led to the sector being
dominated by four large groups (Debenhams, United Drapery Stores, Great
Northern & Southern Stores and the John Lewis Partnership), but amalgama-
tion did not lead to rationalisation in areas such as purchasing, sales or pricing
policy.
66
Fierce competition from the multiples limited the further growth of the
The evolution of Britain’s urban built environment
61
See ibid.
62
O. Marriott, The Property Boom (London, ), p. .
63
Jefferys, Retail Trading, p. .
64
Ibid., p. .
65
Ibid., p. .
66
Ibid., p. .
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department store sector, while the growing democratisation of shopping,
referred to above, reduced its largely ‘middle-class’ appeal.
By large-scale retailers accounted for – per cent of retail sales.
67
However, their influence on town-centre High Street trading was much greater;
by the end of the s there were very few good High Street shopping pitches
which were not occupied by multiple retailers, department stores or Co-ops.
68
The battle for the High Street was entering a new phase, in which acquiring
attractive sites would usually involve purchasing from other large-scale concerns
rather than drawing on the pool of premises occupied by local traders. The inde-
pendent trader had become increasingly confined to niche lines offering few
scale economies such as fish and fruit and vegetables, together with the corner
shop convenience trade. The influence of the corner shop was, to some extent,
strengthened by the trend towards consumers making smaller, more frequent,
purchases of provisions, and the growth of RPM, which reduced the multiples’
price advantage.
In addition to the further development of central High Street shopping areas,
the interwar years witnessed a transformation in the character of local retail
centres. Prior to the First World War isolated shops sprang up all over residen-
tial areas, usually involving the conversion of private dwellings. However, during
the interwar years developers built small parades of half a dozen or so purpose-
built shops to serve their new residential estates, while discouraging the conver-
sion of houses. These parades, one serving each estate, almost certainly lacked
the scale economies achieved by larger, suburban, shopping centres. Their devel-
opment reflected attempts by estate developers to capitalise on the often lucra-
tive retail business created by their residential estates, at a time when local
authority powers to enforce a more efficient pattern of shop provision were
extremely limited.
69
However, a substantial number of larger suburban shopping
centres did also emerge, often along major arterial roads.
Multiple retailers also constituted major agents of development. In addition
to often developing their own stores, some multiples undertook more compre-
hensive projects. For example Sainsbury’s built a number of suburban shopping
parades under the auspices of its development company, Cheyne Investments
Ltd.
70
A similar strategy was adopted by Burton, though rather than developing
shopping parades the company concentrated on large, consolidated, High Street
sites. These would be extensively redeveloped, the resulting block frequently
including additional shops on either side of the Burton’s store, and a first-floor
billiard hall. Specialist shop developers, such as Edward Lotery and George
Cross, provided another important source of retail provision, building shopping
parades alongside new arterial roads and suburban housing estates.
Peter Scott
67
Ibid., p. .
68
Ibid., p. .
69
W. Burns, British Shopping Centres (London, ), p. .
70
B. Williams, The Best Butter in the World:A History of Sainsbury’s (London, ), p. .
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
The nation-wide activities of the major multiples led to a demand for prop-
erty market intermediaries with a similar national coverage. A group of special-
ist commercial estate agents, based around Maddox Street in the West End of
London, emerged to serve this market, providing a range of services for both
retailers and other players in the commercial property market. They grew to
constitute both important repositories of nation-wide property market informa-
tion (regarding prevailing rents, available properties, planning regulations, etc.)
and vital intermediaries between property occupiers, developers, long-term
investors and speculators.
71
Commercial estate agents were particularly important in facilitating the insu-
rance company sector’s growing participation in the property investment market.
Insurance companies provided much of the capital for commercial property
development during this period, especially in the s, when cheap money led
them to turn to property in search of satisfactory yields. For example, during the
financial year the Prudential invested over £. million in property, achiev-
ing a yield of . per cent, at a time when gilts were yielding only . per cent.
72
Money flowed from the insurance companies to property developers and retail-
ers via both mortgages and, from the s, sale and leaseback deals.
Cheap money also encouraged a substantial expansion of the property
company sector, as is shown in Table .. Property company capital issues rose
from an average of only . per cent of all new company issues from – to
. per cent from –.
73
Cheap money allowed property companies to
achieve high dividends by adopting a highly geared capital structure. For
example, if a property company’s assets yielded per cent on costs, and three-
quarters of that cost was raised via per cent debentures, the yield on the
company’s ordinary shares (comprising the remaining per cent of its capital)
would also amount to per cent. However, if, as a result of cheap money, the
property company was able to replace its fixed interest securities by new deben-
tures yielding . per cent, the same per cent earnings from the property port-
folio would now produce an ordinary share dividend of . per cent.
This considerable flow of stockmarket and institutional funds to the commer-
cial property sector, driven by cheap money, contributed to a construction boom
which (together with the much more important boom in residential building)
assisted Britain’s recovery from depression during the s. Over the interwar
period as a whole the building and contracting industries experienced substan-
tial growth, their employment rising from , in to , in
and , in .
74
Small concerns experienced particularly rapid expansion;
firms employing ten or fewer people accounted for . per cent of sectoral
The evolution of Britain’s urban built environment
71
P. Scott, Property Masters (London, ), pp. –.
72
Ibid., p. .
73
E. Nevin, The Mechanism of Cheap Money (Cardiff, ), p. .
74
P. E. Hart, Studies in Profit, Business Saving and Investment in the United Kingdom – , vol.
(London, ), p. .
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employment in ; by this had increased to . per cent.
75
As in the
Victorian period, capital was relatively easily available for even small-scale spec-
ulative builders, via the use of property assets as collateral for loans from build-
ing societies, insurance companies, banks and solicitors.
76
While retailing experienced a considerable boom, there was relatively little
interwar office development. This period saw considerable improvements in
office design, made possible by the belated use of steel-framed construction. By
freeing external walls of their load-bearing function, steel frames led to a new
architectural style, marked by regular fenestration, enhanced daylight and flexible
internal planning.
77
However, the demand for new office space proved
insufficient to generate a substantial volume of speculative development, the few
really large speculative office blocks, such as London’s first ‘skyscraper’, Bush
House, often proving slow to let.
78
Only about per cent of the City’s
office stock had been replaced by .
79
Manufacturing companies continued to locate their administrative headquar-
ters together with their main factories, ICI and Unilever being exceptional in
opting for a City headquarters. However, many manufacturing companies, espe-
cially those supplying the ‘new’ consumer goods industries, chose to locate their
head offices (together with their main manufacturing facilities) in the London
region, usually along London’s arterial road network. A prime example of such
development was Brentford’s ‘Golden Mile’, where a number of major compa-
nies, such as Firestone, Curry’s, and Smith’s Crisps, built factories facing the new
Great West Road.
Such factories were fronted with prestigious office buildings, designed by
leading architects such as Wallis, Gilbert & Partners. The characteristic features
of their ‘Jazz’ or ‘Art Deco’ style fronts were broad, two-storey, buildings with a
central stair tower, forming a framed façade which was often embellished using
chromium, coloured tiling, stained glass and relief-moulded concrete. These
buildings acted as substantial advertisements and combined the advantages of
prominent location, proximity to the manufacturing workforce and easy access
to central London.
The advent of the automobile had changed both the location and design of fac-
tories. Its production typified the ‘new’assembly process industries that flourished
during the interwar years, involving a multitude of components, each of which
had to be added in an ordered sequence. This required production to flow
smoothly across a horizontal factory floor, necessitating large, single-storey, ‘shed’
factories. The modern shed factory was born in the home of production-line
technology, Detroit, developed by architects such as Albert Kahn. Reinforced
Peter Scott
75
Ibid., p. .
76
British Library of Political and Economic Science Archive, Andrews-Brunner papers, Box ,
note of Oxford Economists’ Research Group meeting with Sir Malcolm McAlpine and Mr
Bennett, May .
77
S. J. Murphy, Continuity and Change (London, ), p. .
78
Marriott, Property Boom, pp. –.
79
Cowen et al., The Office, p. .
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concrete floors provided adequate load-bearing, steel skeletons allowed large
roof-spans with the minimum of internal supports, and north-light or single-span
roofing contained windows arranged so as to let in natural daylight, while shel-
tering the factory floor from the wide variations in temperature and lighting
arising from direct sunlight.
80
Even a well-fenestrated multi-storey factory could
not provide good access to natural daylight above a width of about feet (.
m).
81
The new factories were economical and simple to build, adaptable and easily
capable of extension, facilitated rapid construction and incurred low maintenance
costs.
82
Both steel and reinforced concrete were used to achieve these ends.
The switch from steam to electricity as the main power source for industry
provided a further impetus to the transition from multi-storey to single-storey
factories. Electricity did not require transmission from one central point, there-
fore removing the need to arrange production three-dimensionally around the
steam engine. It also freed the location of industry from power constraints, espe-
cially with the development of the national grid following the Electricity
(Supply) Act.
83
Electrically powered factories opened up new possibilities of
smoke-free ‘clean’industry, which could be located close to housing without the
pollution which was characteristic of nineteenth-century industrial districts.
Meanwhile, the years after the First World War saw a dramatic rise in the pro-
portion of industrial merchandise carried by road rather than rail, a trend which
was of particular importance for cargo which had a high value in relation to its
bulk. The development of good medium- and long-distance arterial roads did
not keep pace with the growth of motor freight traffic and the new industries
found themselves competing for relatively scarce factory sites which, ideally,
would provide good access to a major road, together with rail facilities.
At the same time that this transition in the physical determinants of industrial
location was taking place there was also a revolution in ideas regarding industrial
planning. The ‘industrial estate’ originated with the development, from , of
Trafford Park – a , acre ( ha) site adjacent to the Manchester Ship Canal.
Its development as an area exclusively for industrial use, managed by a company
which provided utilities and transport infrastructure, served as the prototype
industrial estate, inspiring the development of other large estates such as Slough,
Park Royal and Team Valley.
Meanwhile another ‘blueprint’ for industrial estate development was being
pioneered by the garden city movement. Britain’s first Garden City, Letchworth
(), was developed as a planned community, with industry zoned into a single
industrial estate within convenient travelling distance of its inhabitants.
Letchworth, and Britain’s second Garden City, Welwyn (), proved success-
ful in attracting industry, especially firms in high value-added sectors, which
required skilled labour, paid high wages and found the planned industrial and
The evolution of Britain’s urban built environment
80
J. Marshall, The History of the Great West Road (Hounslow, ), p. .
81
Ibid., p. .
82
Ibid., p. .
83
S. V. Ward, The Geography of Inter-War Britain (London, ), p. .
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