Catalogue description Records of Bon Marche, Brixton Road

Financial and staff records

Bon Marche Department Store, 1877-1975

Acc 1993/14

Depositor: Cogram and Costley Ltd.

Condition: Donation

Date: August 1993

These records, which are mainly from the 1920s, were found by builders working on the site and donated to Lambeth Archives Department in 1993.

In 1877, James Smith of Tooting bought a piece of land on the west side of Brixton Road and built Britain's first purpose built department store based on the Bon Marche in Paris. Smith was a printer and publisher by trade, not a retailer and the business failed in 1892. The store was saved by a consortium of retailers and became a public company. They added fashion departments and a tea room to the already existing twenty-six departments and built an arcade in 1908. In 1911 the company bought Pratt's of Streatham and in 1912 they acquired Quinn and Axten's next door in Brixton Road. By 1924 there were forty eight departments, including a soda fountain. The company bought Laleham House in Clapham Park as a staff club and sports ground. In 1926 the company was bought by Gordon Selfridge and in the 1940s they became part of the John Lewis Partnership, along with the other Selfridge Provincial Stores. Bon Marche finally closed in 1975. The building remains and still retains the name of the store.

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