Basic HTML Version
3
City & Village Tours: 0845 812 5000 info@cityandvillagetours.com
William Hamley
opened his toy shop in 1760 at
231 High Holborn and called it ‘Noah’s Ark’.
His descendants later moved the store to another
fashionable shopping area – Regents Street.
Mr Hamley’s reputation was so great that they
dropped the ‘Noah’s Ark’!
In 1773 a former footman in the service of Queen
Anne opened a grocery store on Piccadilly with his
friend. Thus Mr William Fortnum and his pal
Mr Hugh Mason founded
Fortnum & Masons.
Young Mr Fortnum realised that in the Royal
Household, once a candle had been lit and then
snuffed out – it was never, ever re-lit. This meant that
at bed-time and after meals there were large numbers
of candles which had hours of burning still available,
A terrible waste to throw them out, he melted them
down and turned them into ‘new ‘candles for sale in
his shop, And all made for the price of precisely
nothing. Many years later, the directors of Fortnum
& Mason met with a young American food salesman
who successfully persuaded them to the be first shop
in England to sell his new canned foods – all 57
varieties of them, That man was Mr Heinz. I am
not entirely sure if you can still buy Heinz Baked
Beans at Fortnum & Masons!
James
Christie
, a former Navy midshipman opens
an auction house in 1766 and immediately his
acquaintance with Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua
Reynolds makes it the auction house of choice. And
for jewellery
, William Asprey
opens a store in 1781,
often based in St. James and Mayfair. Established to
supply the newly emerging upper and middle classes,
many of them are still there. Ah – the joy of window
shopping! It costs nothing to look.
In 1664 Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans and former
Ambassador to Paris and The Hague obtained a grant
of Crown land from Charles II to develop a
residential neighbourhood in the area known as
St. James’s Fields. St James’s Square was the first
development undertaken by Henry Jermyn. The
enterprise flourished and was soon followed by Duke
Street, King Street. St. James’s Street and, of course,
Jermyn Street. A perfect setting for the new, exclusive
shops to serve the rich and powerful residents.
By the 1760s a number of shops were flourishing in
the new district.
Locks the Hatters
in St. James’s
Street were being supplied from the factory of Thomas
and William Bowler in Southwark Bridge Road.
And, yes – they did invent the Bowler Hat, for use by
gamekeepers, so
‘it wouldn’t get snagged by branches
and strong so as a blow from a Poacher wouldn’t do
any harm’.
In 1797
, John Hatchard
opened a bookshop in
Piccadilly. Previously the book trade had been centred
on the Strand. A risk for a young bookseller’s
apprentice to open his shop in the newly developing
‘suburb’ of St. James – but it paid off. The current
shop has been in existence since 1817. The Duke of
Wellington was partial to riding over on his horse
from Apsley House to purchase the latest offerings.