bourne and hollingsworth was essentially an un-showy and respectable department store. unlike some of its more high profile west end neighbours,it presented itself as a useful kind of place for a range of unremarkable middle-class feminine consumption activities and related social events. this proved a particularly good busuness strategy through to the 1950s as later nostalgically recalled in the times,
in its heyday, bourne and hollingsworth was a fairly grand oxford street store, beneath whose famous art deco clock ladies from the suburbs would meet when they came for the day to choose a wedding dress for their daughters and to lunch in the genteel restaurant. the store was renowned for high standards of staff discipline,appearance and conrtesy,stopping just short of serving the customers a glass of sherry
it is a misconception to suggest that in order to succees in london's fashionable west end a store needed to embrace modernuty and novelty. indeed, bourne and hollingsworth's safe repectable image was absolutely to be expected from a mid-level metropolitan department store, just as it was for its provincial counterparts. it was a typical department store in several important respects, not least the way in which busuness and family traditions were entwined with the indentity of the store and at the heart of its business structures. it had its origins in a modest drapers and 'fancy good' store founded in westbourne grove in 1894 by william bourne and howard hollingsworth. for many small retailers, this proved an effective base from which to launch a largerand nore diverse business, whilst retaining the gentility of the trade and customer base. bourne and hollingsworth was able to move to oxford street in the ver early twentieth century. although the company went publicin the early 1950s, it remained in family contril, significant in allowing its paternalistic style of manage-ment to continue: between 1921 and 1972 william's son stafford bourne was in charge, succeeded by nephew christopher bourne. this was a classic mid-level department store, of the sort that provided a frequently unacknowledged but nonetheless highly important component within the mid-twentieth century retail landscape, its quiet conservatism at this time an asset