Before the principals of Marks and Spencer teamed up, the entity was singular, just the one aspiring retailer, Michael Marks, and of material necessity he started very small. A late 19th century immigrant refugee from the Russian Empire’s Byelorussian region, Marks launched his first penny bazaar stall in Central Leeds’ Kirkgate Market with start-up funding amounting to one £5 note – which he had borrowed! Marks met his future partner at this time, Thomas Spencer, and eventually went into business with him after the latter, a Yorkshire cashier, invested £300 for a half-share in what became Marks and Spencer✱.

Early days: Establishing a chain of “penny bazaars”
Michael Marks kicked off with a very basic business model: his initial stall in Leeds was a “one penny stall”, hence the business’ motto, “Don’t ask the price, its a penny”⊡. The early stall commodities focused on household goods, haberdashery, toys and a sheet-music business (note the early spelling of the store name with an errant plural ‘s’ in ‘Spencer’ in the photo at left). Marks (the more dynamic and “hands-on” of the partners) immediately set about expanding the business, first up establishing a shop in Manchester. By 1894 Marks and Spencer had graduated to a permanent stall in Leeds’ covered market (in 1904 they opened their first Leeds shop) and in 1901 concentrated its open market operation in Birkenhead on Merseyside.

Forging a regional retail identity
The two partners initially focussed locally, concentrating on Yorkshire and Lancashire, a new warehouse in Manchester (1897) became the early centre of the M&S business empire which numbered 36 branches by that time…the firm accumulated stalls (later on, shops) in towns and cities across the North of England (Manchester, Liverpool, Hull, Sheffield, Middlesbrough and Sunderland) as well as further south (Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Swansea, etc) [‘The History of Marks and Spencer’, (h2g2, 2008/2012), www.h2g2.com].

Spencer

Marks

By the early 1900s Marks and Spencer was starting to yield a very tidy surplus, becoming a limited company in 1903. At this juncture Thomas Spencer decided to cash in and retire from the partnership with a nice “nest egg” of £15,000 (for his initial outlay of £300) [‘Thomas Spencer (Marks and Spencer)’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. Sadly for both Spencer and Marks, neither got to enjoy their monetary success long – Spencer died in 1905, followed by Marks in 1907. Nonetheless the prestigious company name has long outlived the two founding principals, thriving into the 21st century.

The end of “British-only” and “home-brand only”
In the early 20th century M&S, entering into long-term relationships with British manufacturers, emphasised a policy of selling only British-manufactured goods, clothes and food were sold under the famous “St Michael” brand (named after founder Michael Marks). The fluctuating commercial fortunes of the company in the 1990s led to M&S relenting somewhat on this policy.

Textiles and food
By the Twenties M&S had moved into the sale of textiles in a big way (launching its own laboratories to commercially produce new fabrics for the British market). In 1931 it added food to its portfolio of products…M&S’s own food technology department (from 1948) allowed it to offer chilled poultry to customers, instead of the hitherto frozen or pre-cooked options (courtesy of a new technology it called “cold chain distribution”) [‘What 130 years of M&S history can teach us about innovation”, (Hannah Jenkinson, 2018), www.about.futurelearn.com].

By the 1960s these two commodities, textiles and food, were firmly ensconced as the staples of Marks and Spencer. M&S were forerunners in introducing retail practices that enhanced customer satisfaction, such as the “money-back, no questions asked, no time limit” policy.

Marble Arch – M&S flagship store ⬆

In 1930 Marks and Spencer established itself in the United Kingdom’s financial capital, opening a mega-sized London store at 458 Oxford Street, W1. The Marble Arch store which was to become the company’s flagship store, would go on to compete with those other leading retailers of quality merchandise already with abase in Oxford Street, Selfridge’s and John Lewis’. Marble Arch wasn’t in fact M&S’s first retail outlet in London, that honour went to the one in nearby Edgware Road (which is actually closer to the Marble Arch monument than the Marble Arch M&S!). The Edgware Road store began as a penny bazaar in 1912 with additional floors added in the 1920s. During World War II the building was damaged by German incendiary bombs (as was Marble Arch tube station in an earlier Nazi air raid). In 1959 the original store at Nº228 Edgware Road was closed and replaced by a new, much bigger store at 258-264 Edgware which opened just six days later [‘The History of Marks & Spencer Edgware Road’, (Jan. 2017), www.marble-arch.london].

Nº228 Edgware (Source: M&S Co Archive) ⬇

M&S shift of strategy in an increasingly volatile retail market
At the turn of the 21st century Marks and Spencer’s prospects appeared fairly sanguine…in 1998 it became the first British retailer to achieve a pre-tax profit of over £1B.

But in the first decade of this century, M&S, sensing the need to compete for more of the market, made some seismic changes. The standard–bearer St Michael’s brand was dropped, other longtime lines were rebranded. The company moved away from its emphasis on “British quality goods”, starting to sell big-name grocery lines like Marmite, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and KitKats in its stores [‘Marks and Spencer to start selling top brands’, (G Hiscott), The Mirror (UK), 04-Nov-2009, www.mirror.co.uk] (previously it had concentrated on ‘luxury’ food products exclusively). This marks the recognition by Marks and Spencer that the falling trend of clothing sales needed to be heavily supplemented by popular food items.

Marks and Spencer (colloquially and affectionately known on the street as “Marks and Sparks”) as at April 2017 could list a total of 959 operating stores across the UK✣, 615 of which traded in food only (the “Simply Food” label), evidence of how food products had come to prop up the other traditional areas of the business. Future prospects for the major British retailer remain somewhat nebulous after the company signalled in 2018 its intent to close around 100 M&S stores in the country by 2022. Retail finance watchers have also questioned, with such a reliance on food items, whether M&S can ultimately match it with the UK’s food and groceries powerhouse Tesco [‘M&S online food delivery service will be no piece of cake’, Robert Plummer, BBC News, 28-Apr-2017, www.bbc.com]. Still, Marks and Spencer remains in majority British hands (unlike its rival heavyweights Harrods and Selfridges).

⬆ Commemorative M&S clock in Leeds market

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✱ the foundation date for the company is traditionally given as 1884, however the exact date the partnership began between Marks and Spencer seems conjectural – other candidates are from 1894 (the Leeds permanent stall) or from 1901 (the Birkenhead market)
⊡ product inexpensiveness was not to stay the M&S catch cry – by the late 1920s Simon Marks (the founder’s son who had assumed the reins) placed a 5/- limit on items. Long before this M&S had made the store focus one of quality over cheapness
✣ plus over 200 overseas stores in at least 40 countries