“ARE YOU BEING SERVED?”
Marments, Seccombes, Mackross and Evan Roberts are names that may bring back memories to some, but not all; add David Morgan to the list and it may become clear that these are all iconic department stores in Cardiff that have ceased trading.
Cowbridge U3A History Group was regaled in October 2018 by member Gwerfyl Gardner on the story behind several of the large department stores in Wales and also some in London with Welsh connections.
James Howell from Fishguard started work in a local draper’s shop before moving to London, where he was employed by Frederick Gorrings Ltd of Buckingham Palace Road. He returned to Wales and opened a shop selling furniture and clothing on The Hayes in Cardiff, before transferring into St Mary Street.
The business thrived and, over the years, acquired neighbouring premises, including Bethany Chapel, which accounts for the store’s range of architectural styles.
Other buildings in Cardiff linked with James Howell are the Park Hotel and the Mansion House, the latter being his family home.
Howell’s store was sold to House of Fraser in 1972 and now faces an uncertain future following the financial difficulties of that business.
A long-term rival of Howell’s was the nearby David Morgan departmental store, which closed in 2005. The founder, David Morgan, a farmer’s son from Brecon, was another Welshman who went to London to learn his trade. On his return to the principality, he opened draper’s shops in Pontlottyn and Abertillery, before starting what became the iconic business in Cardiff in 1879. The store became a six-storey building, with arcades.
Michael Aspel worked in David Morgan’s soft furnishing department for a few years, before becoming a newsreader for the BBC in Cardiff.
The first departmental emporium in Wales was the Ben Evans store in Swansea, known as the ‘Harrods of Wales’ because of its quality merchandise and high standards. Few will remember it, as the building was reduced to rubble when hit by incendiary bombs in February 1941. The adjacent David Evans department store which had been similarly gutted was permitted to rebuild on the same site, but not Ben Evans. Re-opening in another location, the business was never able to recapture the high status it had once held and closed around 1959.
Gwerfyl’s home town of Bangor was not forgotten, with a mention of the business opened there in 1865 by Morris Wartski, a refugee from Tsarist pogroms. The enterprise boomed and the name Wartski’s is now associated with premises in London’s Mayfair, specialising in fine jewellery and silver. The site in Bangor later became a Browns of Chester store; the Browns group was purchased by Debenhams (another national departmental store chain with financial problems) in 1975.
Peter Rees Jones from Carmarthenshire was one more Welshman who, from humble origins, established a large department store. He served an apprenticeship with a draper in Cardigan before travelling to London where he opened a small shop. In 1877, the business moved to Kings Road, where it flourished and expanded.
After the death of Peter Jones in 1905, the enterprise was purchased by John Lewis, the Oxford Street store, but retained the trading name of ‘Peter Jones’. The current Grade II* listed building was constructed in the 1930s.
The final Welsh entrepreneur that the audience learned of was John Jones, born near Newborough on Anglesey, a farmer’s son. History knows him better as John Pritchard-Jones, a name he adopted by deed poll just a few months before his death in 1917, aged 76.
At the age of fourteen, Jones was apprenticed to a draper in Caernarfon, eventually, when he was nineteen, moving to London. In 1872, he entered the firm of Dickins, Smith & Stevens in Regent Street. There he was successively promoted to buyer, manager, director, chairman of the board and finally to partner, when the name of the store was changed to Dickins & Jones. He was prominent in movements for the promotion of workers' welfare, as well as supporting profit-sharing schemes for his employees.
Pritchard-Jones did not forget his Welsh roots; he had a home on Anglesey and provided a large community centre for Newborough, which had a free library, an assembly room, reading and recreation rooms, together with cottages for local elderly people. He was a generous benefactor to the University College of North Wales in Bangor; Pritchard-Jones Hall, where generations of students have sat examinations and attended graduation ceremonies (including the author), was partly financed by his donation of £15,000 towards its construction.
Mrs Gardner concluded her illustrated presentation with a short account of the life of female shop workers: by 1900, approximately 250,000 women were employed in the trade and up to 60% would ‘live in’, often under very restrictive rules and regulations.
Steve Monaghan