Peter Jones (department store)

Last updated
Peter Jones & Partners
Industry Retail
Founded1877
Founder Peter Jones
Area served
London, England
Parent John Lewis & Partners

View of the building Peter Jones department store - geograph.org.uk - 999798.jpg
View of the building

Peter Jones & Partners (formerly and commonly known as Peter Jones) is a large department store in central London. It is owned by John Lewis & Partners and located in Sloane Square, Chelsea. The store holds two royal warrants granted by Charles, then Prince of Wales, and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

Contents

History

The shop is named after Peter Rees Jones (1842–1905), the son of a Carmarthenshire hat manufacturer. After serving an apprenticeship with a draper in Cardigan, Jones moved to London and established a small shop in Marylebone Lane. He then moved to central London, and in 1877, he moved to 4–6 King's Road, the current site of the store. The business flourished, soon expanding to cover most of the block, occupied on a 999-year lease from the Cadogan estate at £6,000 per year, the terms of which have never been increased. [1]

After a period of troubled trading and Jones' death, the store was purchased by John Lewis of the eponymous Oxford Street store, who handed it over to his son John Spedan Lewis in 1914. Soon after, it became part of the John Lewis profit sharing partnership.

The present building, which occupies an entire island site on the west side of Sloane Square, was built between 1932 and 1936 to designs by William Crabtree of the firm of Slater, Crabtree and Moberly. [2] The building is the first modern-movement use of the glass curtain wall in Britain (not, as is often claimed, the first per se, as late-Victorian examples in the Gothic Revival style exist) and is now a Grade II* listed building.

Old logo used from 2000 to 2018 Peter Jones logo.png
Old logo used from 2000 to 2018

The store completed a lengthy refurbishment by John McAslan and Partners in 2004. [3] In 2009, Simon Fowler was appointed managing director, overseeing a two-year period of growth where sales and profits reached record levels. This period also spanned Peter Jones' 100th anniversary of its membership at the John Lewis Partnership, where it is widely recognised to be the birthplace of the democratic employee ownership structure still found in the retailer today. Tony Wheeler was appointed managing director in 2011. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Kensington tube station</span> London Underground station

South Kensington is a London Underground station in the district of South Kensington, south west London. It is served by the District, Circle and Piccadilly lines. On the District and Circle lines it is between Gloucester Road and Sloane Square, and on the Piccadilly line between Gloucester Road and Knightsbridge. It is in Travelcard Zone 1. The main station entrance is located at the junction of Old Brompton Road (A3218), Thurloe Place, Harrington Road, Onslow Place and Pelham Street. Subsidiary entrances are located in Exhibition Road giving access by pedestrian tunnel to the Natural History, Science and Victoria and Albert Museums. Also close by are the Royal Albert Hall, Imperial College London, the Royal College of Music, the London branch of the Goethe-Institut and the Ismaili Centre.

The John Lewis Partnership plc (JLP) is a British company that operates John Lewis & Partners department stores, Waitrose supermarkets, its banking and financial services, and other retail-related activities. The public limited company is owned by a trust on behalf of all its employees – known as partners – and a bonus, akin to a share of the profit, is paid to employees. John Lewis has around 80,800 partners/employees as of 2020. JLP Group was the third-largest UK non-traded company by sales in The Sunday Times Top Track 100 for 2016. The chain's image is upmarket, and its customers are likely to be more affluent consumers. It was a member of the International Association of Department Stores from 2004 to 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waitrose</span> British supermarket chain owned by John Lewis Partnership

Waitrose & Partners is a British supermarket chain, founded in 1904 as Waite, Rose & Taylor, later shortened to Waitrose. In 1937, it was acquired by the John Lewis Partnership, the UK's largest employee-owned business, which continues to operate the brand. The company's head offices are in Bracknell, Berkshire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sloane Square</span> Public square in Kensington and Chelsea, London

Sloane Square is a small hard-landscaped square on the boundaries of the central London districts of Belgravia and Chelsea, located 1.8 miles (2.9 km) southwest of Charing Cross, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The area forms a boundary between the two largest aristocratic estates in London, the Grosvenor Estate and the Cadogan. The square was formerly known as 'Hans Town', laid out in 1771 to a plan of by Henry Holland Snr. and Henry Holland Jnr. Both the square and Hans Town were named after Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753), an Anglo-Irish doctor who, jointly with his appointed trustees, owned the land at the time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allders</span> British department store

Allders was an independent department store operating in the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heelas of Reading</span>

Heelas is a major department store in Reading in the English county of Berkshire. It was known as Heelas until 2001 and that name is still in common usage. The store fronts on to Reading's main pedestrianised shopping street, Broad Street, and backs onto Minster Street and The Oracle shopping centre. The store has belonged to the John Lewis Partnership since 1953.

Ohrbach's was a moderate-priced department store with a merchandising focus primarily on clothing and accessories. From its modest start in 1923 until the chain's demise in 1987, Ohrbach's expanded dramatically after World War II, and opened numerous branch locations in the New York and Los Angeles metropolitan areas. Its original flagship store was located on Union Square in New York City. It maintained administrative offices in Newark and in Los Angeles. The retailer closed the Newark offices in the 1970s. Paul László designed the Union Square store as well as many of their other stores.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">House of Fraser</span> British department store group

House of Fraser and Frasers are a British department store chain with 25 locations across the United Kingdom and 2 in Ireland, part of Frasers Group. It was established in Glasgow, Scotland in 1849 as Arthur and Fraser. By 1891, it was known as Fraser & Sons. The company grew steadily during the early 20th century and in 1936 began a period of growth through acquisition which would continue for over forty years. House of Fraser Ltd was incorporated in 1941 and first listed on the London Stock Exchange six years later.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Lewis & Partners</span> British department store chain owned by John Lewis Partnership

John Lewis & Partners, commonly known as John Lewis, is a British chain of high-end department stores operating across the United Kingdom, with concessions in Ireland. It is part of the John Lewis Partnership, the UK's largest employee-owned business. The brand was established in 1929 by Spedan Lewis, son of the founder, John Lewis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dillons the Bookstore</span>

Dillons was a British bookseller founded in 1936, named after its founder and owner Una Dillon. Originally based in Bloomsbury in London, the company expanded under subsequent owners Pentos in the 1980s into a bookselling chain across the United Kingdom. In 1995 Pentos went into receivership and sold Dillons to Thorn EMI, which immediately closed 40 of the 140 Dillons bookstore locations. Of the remaining 100 stores, most kept the name Dillons, while the remainder were Hatchards and Hodges Figgis. Within Thorn EMI, Dillons was placed in the HMV Group, which had been a division of Thorn EMI since 1986. EMI demerged from Thorn in August 1996, and Dillons-HMV remained an EMI holding. Dillons was subsumed under rival chain Waterstones' branding in 1999, at which point the brand ceased to exist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crabtree & Evelyn</span> American retailer of body and home products

Crabtree & Evelyn was a retailer of body, fragrance and home care products. Beginning with one store in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1971, the brand grew to an international presence, with hundreds of locations globally.

John Spedan Lewis was an English businessman and the founder of the John Lewis Partnership.

Peter Rees Jones was the founder of the Peter Jones department store in Sloane Square, London, England.

John Lewis was an English businessman and town councillor, known for being the founder of the John Lewis department store on Oxford Street, London and the national John Lewis department store chain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Queensgate Peterborough</span> Shopping mall in Peterborough, Cambs.

The Queensgate shopping centre is located in the centre of the UK city of Peterborough, in Cambridgeshire. It contains over 100 stores and parking for 2,300 cars in four onsite multi-storey car parks. Queensgate bus station is located within the shopping centre and only a short walk from Peterborough railway station. Peterborough Shop Mobility provide wheelchairs and electric scooters to help those with limited mobility. The centre was opened by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands on 9 March 1982.

William Crabtree (1905–1991) was an English architect. His reputation rests mainly on his Peter Jones department store, Sloane Square and King's Road, Chelsea, London (1932–37), designed for John Spedan Lewis (1885–1963), the founder of the John Lewis Partnership.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John McAslan</span>

John Renwick McAslan is a British architect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sloane Square Hotel</span> Hotel in Kensington and Chelsea, London

The Sloane Square Hotel is located on the north side of Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Nearby notable buildings include the Royal Court Theatre, the department store Peter Jones and the Sloane Square Underground station.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Barnes (department store)</span> Former department store in London

John Barnes was a department store located on the Finchley Road in north west London. The building is now occupied by a Waitrose & Partners store and flats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howard de Walden Estate</span> London aristocratic property estate

The Howard de Walden Estate is a property estate in Marylebone, London, owned by the Howard de Walden family. As of 2020 the estate was reported to be worth £4.7 billion.

References

  1. "The Land Question in Britain". Palgrave Macmillan. 20 January 2010. ISBN   9780230248472 . Retrieved 20 January 2017.
  2. "Peter Jones, Sloane Square, London". The modern shop: architecture & shopping between the wars. Victoria and Albert Museum . Retrieved 15 August 2011.
  3. Glancey, Jonathan (14 June 2004). "Escalator to Heaven". The Guardian . London. Retrieved 14 August 2020.
  4. Peter Jones website shop information, accessed 29 June 2011

51°29′32″N0°09′32″W / 51.4922°N 0.1590°W / 51.4922; -0.1590