Welcome to the Original Virtual Museum - celebrating Woolworths' century at the heart of British High Street Shopping
- - - - -
please click a menu button
please click a menu button Original Virtual Museum Home Page please click a menu button The Woolworth value store concept is born in the USA please click a menu button Laying the foundations as the first British Woolworth store opens in Liverpool in November 1909 please click a menu button Woolworths rapidly open forty-four stores in Britain and Ireland before facing a World War please click a menu button Bigger, brighter and bolder Woolworth stores in the Roaring Twenties please click a menu button Woolworths go to amazing lengths to keep all prices under sixpence in the Thirties please click a menu button Bravery and defiance during World War II in Woolworths' finest hour. We pay tribute to the sacrifices made and look behind the scenes please click a menu button Redefining the Woolworth brand for modern times in the 1950s, as prices go up and stores get bigger and bigger please click a menu button Superstores in and out of town, a new own brand and the opening of overseas Commonwealth stores during the 1960s please click a menu button Woolworth struggles to keep up during the rapid inflation and change of the 1970s please click a menu button Woolworth stores in more recent times, covering the period 1980-2008 please click a menu button
please click a menu button please click a menu button please click a menu button please click a menu button please click a menu button please click a menu button please click a menu button please click a menu button please click a menu button please click a menu button please click a menu button
Background to the Original Virtual Museum and copyright information about the contents Origins of the firm's legendary pic'n'mix and a century of chocolate, candy and confectionery in the High Street A century of music and entertainment in the High Street from sheet music and gramophone records to CDs and blu-ray discs A century of toys, games and fun in the High Street stores of F. W. Woolworth A century of fashion in the High Street, from paper patterns and sixpenny knickers to an extensive range of award-winning Ladybird clothing A century of cards, pens, pads and books from the shelves of F. W. Woolworth stores Pots and pans, paint and brushes, bulbs and compost and even toiletries - all in High Street Woolworth stores for much of the twentieth century Woolworths pioneered Christmas decorations in the 19th century and supplied presents for our parents, grandparents and great grandparents from their High Street stores Working conditions and pay rates at Woolworths over a hundred years and some of the people behind the brand-name Our cinema, quiz and picture gallery features Visit the new look 21st century Woolworths on line, on the site operated by Shop Direct Group
please click a menu button please click a menu button please click a menu button please click a menu button please click a menu button please click a menu button please click a menu button please click a menu button please click a menu button please click a menu button please click a menu button

Reconstruction and Recovery

Getting back to normal in the late 1940s
 
"Welcome home Sir, we've carried on" - a Woolworth store celebrates their Manager's safe return from World War II in this illustration for the Staff Magazine.

With victory assured in the European War, even before Japan surrendered men and women at arms began to return to their stores as they were demobilised. The June 1945 edition of the House Magazine, The New Bond, called for employees who planned to return to contact their District Office to make arrangements.

The law gave everyone the right to return to the job they left when they joined up.  To comply the company had made every appointment temporary throughout the long conflict. The end of hostilities left a major logistical challenge to determine who was returning and whether they wanted to return to their former store or would be happy to be promoted to a larger one.

In the shake-up that followed some people who had worked their way up to manage the largest city centre stores in wartime had to return to the tiny branches where they had started out in the 1930s. And many women who had proved more than capable of controlling their stores during the conflict were demoted to the offices and stockrooms that they had worked in before the emergency. Most stoically treated the step down as a small sacrifice to make way for 'heroes' and to honour the 149 would had given their lives in the defence of freedom.

The company acknowledged the women's sacrifice and later made a point of inviting them to manage stores of their own as the chain expanded in the Fifties. But only a few were able to take up the offer, which was normally to take charge of a store many miles away from home.
 
The Tea Bar at King Street, St Helier, Jersey was reinstated and re-opened in time for Christmas 1945. It was a matter of pride for the whole business to show solidarity with those colleagues who had endured the occupation.

After restoring the employees to their stores, the Company made the branches in the Channel Islands their priority. This was consistent with a national wave of sympathy for the people of Jersey and Guernsey who had endured the lengthy German occupation.
 

Reinstatement of the stores on the mainland was much further off.  Strict rules after the war restricted access to the building materials required to make repairs. Hospitals, schools and new houses for the homeless were given priority over all other development.

Other regulations restricted what was available at the shops and rationed what customers were allowed to buy. Food and clothing rations were reduced. Some remained in force well into the 1950s.

The first priority for the Government was to repay the massive debts that the country had incurred to fight the war. At the start of hostilities, when the USA had remained neutral, they had sold the country munitions on credit. The debt had to be paid. A major export drive was launched to earn foreign exchange which would help to balance the books. Most manufactured goods were sent abroad rather than to the shops.

 The new Woolworths store in Weybridge, Surrey opened in 1946, seven years after building work was completed. In the interim the location served as a relief site for the London HQ
 

There were two store openings in 1946. Each building had been mothballed after the outbreak of war. As soon as fixtures became available they were fitted out and opened. Their new layout gave a flavour of things to come.  The building fabric of the store at Weybridge, Surrey (No. 760) had been completed in 1939, but, rather than fit out the salesfloor with counters, the firm had opted to install desks and phones to make a temporary headquarters in case it was needed. They feared that the Executive Office in New Bond Street, Mayfair might be knocked out by German raids on the West End of London. The move had proved a wise one. The Burlington Arcade adjacent to the London office was hit and put the Woolworth HQ out of action for three weeks. Work was able to carry on in Weybridge.

A new store in Newry, County Down, Northern Ireland (No. 769) had also been mothballed after government intervention. It was among a number of branches that were requisitioned for use by the Ministry of Food. The orders seizing control of these properties stated that they were required for storage and would not be opened to the public. The other branches were stripped of merchandise and handed over, while the keys of the Newry branch had been taken before the salesfloor had been fitted out.

With peace restored, as materials became available, the branches were equipped with new mahogany fixtures and were treated as prototypes for a new generation of stores.  With no upper price limit they were able to offer a much wider range. Some of the new items had prices as high as five shillings, ten times the pre-war limit. This was expressed "5/-" on price tickets and was the equivalent of 25p at the time, or, adjusted for inflation in the intervening years. £7.50 in the 21st Century. Both new stores proved very popular with the public.
         
The changing face of Woolworths in Strood, Rochester, Kent between 1936 and 1946. References to the threepenny and sixpenny stores have started to disappear (although the transom signs above the door remain seven years after the top limit was scrapped).


Another challenge was to find an affordable way of removing the price references from the store fronts. The firm was keen to address grumbles from customers that they could no longer find anything  that cost threepence or sixpence, after the inflation of the war years. Empirically a third of the store range was actually 6d or less, but everyone agreed that the signs were dated and needed to go.

With building materials rationed, the only option was to remove the lettering, give the fascia board a lick of red paint and then reposition the "F. W. Woolworth & Co. Ltd." to the centre. The remaining letters, spelling '3D and 6D Stores', and in some cases 'Nothing over 6D' were returned to District Office, where they were dismantled with the parts re-used or sold for scrap.
 

In 1948 work started to restore the shopping streets of the towns and cities that had suffered the worst bombardment during the blitz. The Company Architects worked with central government to agree the design of new look stores and the building materials that would be needed. The lion's share of the cost was funded by a war reparations scheme.

Twenty-six stores had been completely destroyed. The devastation stretched along the South Coast from Plymouth and Devonport in the west, along the English Channel through Bristol, Bournemouth, Southampton, Portsmouth, Southsea, Chatham and Dover to Lowestoft, Norwich and Hull on the East Coast. The enemy had also attacked the country's major industrial towns and cities. Woolworth losses had been more random, with some branches surviving unscathed while others, like Coventry, Sheffield and South Shields had been razed to the ground.
Rebuilding work on Woolworths at South Shields (No. 104) , destroyed in the Blitz in 1941, did not start until 8 years later.
         
The architect's drawing for a "new, modern" Woolworths in South Shields. The building is virtually identical to similar ones drawn up for Bristol, Norwich and Portsmouth

The company architect, Harold Winbourne, developed a new look store, and proposed variants of this design for each blitzed location. The new buildings were larger and brighter. Thought went into making them more accessible, with wider entrances and fewer steps.

The latest design and construction techniques were used. These allowed the stores to be built in stages quickly and cheaply. Many of the new buildings went on to serve for a further sixty years, only closing their doors when the chain folded in 2008.
         
Back to normal - the Woolies store at the British Museum end of Oxford Street (Nos. 150-154, store no. 463) in the autumn of 1946. The highest price visible is 4 shillings and four pence - nearly nine times higher than the top price before World War II, 7 years earlier
         
By the end of the 1940s there was a marked difference between the stores that had survived the war and those that were newly built. Compare the old store above, which is illuminated by individual bulbs in globe shades and has an oiled wooden floor and lots of pillars, with the open plan in the new Norwich store, with a taller ceiling, flourescent lighting and shiny terrazzo marble tiles underfoot. Performance in the new stores far exceeded the old, prompting a major upgrade programme during the Fifties, as the chain surged ahead. There are many more pictures of the new-look in the interactive exhibit in the 1950s Gallery of the Original Virtual Museum.
         
The new look salesfloor of Woolworths in Norwich (No. 44) which was designed in 1949 and opened progressively through 1950 and 51
If you have enjoyed our Virtual Museum website, why not check out our complete history of Woolworths in a 194 page, richly illustrated paperback book? A Sixpenny Romance is just £10.99, with free delivery in our on-line shop.
The special DVD, the Wonder of Advertising, is now available in our on-line shop for £7.50 with free delivery. A fully illustrated 194 page history of Woolworths, or a selection of professionally authored DVDs in our on-line shop