The 'pioneer' stores opened before World War I

The forty-four British 'pioneer' stores opened before the Great War retained a very special place in the Company's heart for more than 70 years. Every one was chosen, or approved, by the Founder himself. He considered them to be the prime locations and deemed them his flagships. They were given priority for investment, even if it was at the expense of store openings. As soon as the company changed its policy in the 1920s, the Directors sought to buy the freeholds and to expand into neighbouring properties. During the twentieth century a handful of new flagships were added as the firm got richer, including London's Oxford Street and Kensington High Street, Birmingham's Bull Ring and New Street, Spurriergate in York, Eastgate in Chester and Oxford's Cornmarket.

Many of the prime locations were sacrificed in the early 1980s as new owners sought to release the high capital values that had accumulated. Kingfisher used the real estate to build B&Q much more rapidly than it could have grown on its own.

After the first openings along the line of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway in the North and the move into London, the focus had turned to expanding the store base to cover the whole of the British Isles. Special teams targeted openings in Ireland and a drive west into Wales and North into Scotland during 1913 and 1914. In parallel expansion in London continued pace. On this page we take a look at a few of the landmark stores that became the mainstay of the company in its heyday.

Above: the Woolworths store in Castle Street Bristol, which opened in 1911. Note the complete lack of traffic in this busy thoroughfare. Castle Street was largely destroyed early in the Blitz. The City Centre was remodelled after the war. Woolworth re-opened in Broadmead.

Below: the first Irish Woolworths in Dublin's fashionable Grafton Street, which opened on 23 April 1914. Frank Woolworth was one of a number of executives at the New York headquarters who claimed Irish ancestry. They were particularly proud of this opening, along with another in High Street, Belfast in the industrialised north of the island, which opened on 6 November 1915.

Left: An early Scottish store pictured in 1913 in Argyle Street, Glasgow.

Unusually the fascia has the "NOTHING IN THESE STORES OVER 6D" in the centre. "WOOLWORTHS STORES" also appears in a semi-circle above the parapet wall.

The adaptations were required by the landlord.

Right: The Easter window displays at the popular Woolworth store in Hare Street, Woolwich, pictured in April 1911.

The Store Manager, George Wales, pioneered the location, and went on to open further London branches in Rye Lane, Peckham in July 1912, and in King Street, Hammersmith in October 1914.

Wales was a patriot and enlisted for service after the outbreak of the Great War. He died in the Battle of Cambrai, France on 22 November 1917 at the age of just thirty-three years. Memorial.

Right: the person who sent the postcard of the Tram Centre Swindon (a view down Regent Street in the Wiltshire town), has kindly marked the location of Woolworths along with Boots the Cash Chemists and the Town Hall.

The store was repeatedly extended. It appears again in our 1930s, 1950s and 1990s exhibits. Swindon remained a company favourite, with a wide frontage in Regent Street and a further entrance in Edgeware Road, until the demise of the store-based company in January 2009. The town was home to the main national distribution centre for the chain in the Dorcan Industrial Estate, Faraday Road from 1973 until 2009.

By the outbreak of World War I there were forty-four branches of Woolworths right across the British Isles - known later to Managers as the 'Pioneer stores'. The outbreak of war left the company very short of Managers and Learners, but there was no shortage of builders or property. As a result, after a blip, the pace of openings actually increased in 1915. By 1921 there were a hundred Woolworths stores, with plans for many more.