Scouting for locations and choosing the town for the first British store

Frank planned for his expert American scouts to join him once he and his party were settled, and when they had incorporated the company. Until then he would lead from the front, explaining to cousin Fred and Managers Miller and Balfour what to look out for when opening a store. Population, wealth, transport and sources of manufacture were all part of the formula. But so was his trusted "Woolworth's Atlas of the World", a regular companion when he scouted the US.

Frank had a theory that for somewhere as "small" as England it would be best to start with a store in the centre of the country. He believed that customers would travel long distances to visit his first store as word of its values spread, and that by locating the Buying Offices and central warehouse in the store he could "save plenty on costs". Borrowing the ship's compass he pinpointed Northampton as the centre of England. "We should start there", he declared.

Frank and his team landed in Plymouth and made straight for London. There was much to do. First they would need to find a British solicitor and start the process of setting up a Company. The Articles of Association and initial financing of the British Woolworths are covered in a separate exhibit in this Gallery.

The pioneers travelled the Country by train and sometimes by charabanc. En-route Woolworth looked out for new suppliers and products to send back to America. He also visited his existing partners and invited them to propose new lines to be sold by his British stores.

The itinerary included Northampton, Southampton, Portsmouth, Croydon, Brighton, Reading, Hammersmith, Kensington, Birmingham, Coventry, Liverpool and Manchester.

The team considered that all of these Cities and Towns were good locations for the business, but were disappointed that "stores here are too small and shallow". Woolworth continues in a letter home "A store will have a fine front and show windows 25 to 50 feet wide yet is only 50 to 75 feet deep. The reason is that customers do most of their shopping from the show windows. You will find the sidewalks crowded with people looking in the windows and expect to see the store full. But go inside and you will notice only one or two customers. The moment you go in you are expected to buy and to have made your choice from the window. They give you an icy stare if you follow the American custom of just going in to look around."

The nationwide tour also gave Frank Woolworth and the team the chance to size up the competition. He believed that the major competition was the Marks and Spencer Penny Bazaar, which offered household goods for no more than a penny. They had started as market stalls in the North but were now starting to take open-fronted premises in High Street locations. The team took a good look round the stores in North End, Croydon and Oldham Street, Manchester.

During the tour Frank noted "Most goods here are better made and cheaper than in America ... Goods which we sell for ten cents are six to eight cents here. Five-cent goods can be bought for two or three cents. This means that when we open in England we shall sell very few American goods."

After the shock of Marks and Spencer, they inspected another potential competitor, the 6½D Bazaar Company, which had 130 stores. To Frank's relief they presented much less of a threat with higher prices and lower quality. He concluded that they would soon give up.

Arriving in Liverpool, Frank was surprised to find a truly go-ahead City. It had an Electric Overhead Railway ("just like New York") prosperous merchants (ditto) and magnificent buildings too. The shops also were more up-to-date. "We have no walkover here", he wrote in a letter back to Carson Peck in New York. "British business men are as bright, alert and smart as American. Some of their ideas we would do well to copy."

More surprises were to come. As a multi-millionaire Woolworth had not expected there to be any barriers to renting property. But word of his plans had leaked out from New York and hit the British media. Both the Drapers' Record  and the Daily Mail  were angered by his planned invasion. They compared Woolworth to the 'infamous showman' P. T. Barnum, reporting that dimestores were a circus and Frank Woolworth was a charlatan laying on a sideshow that would be less amusing than Barnum's General Tom Thumb and more akin to his maxim "a fool and his money are soon parted". Sight unseen they recommended that anyone with real estate should steer well clear of Mr Woolworth and his shoddy threepenny and sixpenny goods.

But now the team had to make a choice. Where was the first store to open? Which of the cities or towns that they had inspected offered the best prospect for the fledgling business? Frank Woolworth noted:

"Within a radius from the city of Manchester, I am told there are 9,500,000 souls, more people that in any district of the same area on the globe, not even excepting the congested areas of China. The whole section is composed of industries that have made England the manufacturing centre of the world. The principal industry is the manufacture of cotton goods. Yet Manchester City does not look as lively and up to date to us as Liverpool, 35 miles away, which has only 700,000 to 800,000 people".

So, while the other locations were saved for later, Frank Woolworth set about securing a property in Liverpool, targeting the well-appointed former Henry Miles Milliners store that fronted both Church Street and Williamson Street. The landlord wasn't sure, taken in by the newspaper speculation, and insisted on a year's rent in advance against a 25 year lease.

Woolworth wrote back to New York "Our offer for a store has been practically accepted, but papers have not been signed yet. We find it no small undertaking to start our business in England. My opinion of the average Englishman being rather slow was an error. We may get done up yet."

The lease was finally signed on Friday 13 August 1909. The premises included three trading floors (the top floor was set out as tea-rooms which had operated independently of the hat shop), with stockrooms and offices above. Local shopfitters were hired, with preparations starting in earnest. There were products to buy, staff to hire and plans to make for this opening and more to follow.