Welcome to the Original Virtual Museum - celebrating Woolworths' century at the heart of British High Street Shopping
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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
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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
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Sweets, rationing and World War II

Tinned fruit, tuna and salmon chunks were all offered from the sweets department of Woolworths in the late 1930s. It wasn't long before some customers were jolly glad that they had laid some away!By the late 1930s the F. W. Woolworth Threepenny and Sixpenny Stores enjoyed a dominant position in the market. It seemed there was no way to compete with them. 1939 saw the opening of the 750th shop. The firm still had a postbag full of recommendations for new towns. Rival retailers found the sixpenny prices hard to beat, especially as the firm had steadily built its ranges of sweets and confectionery to stimulate impulse purchases as customers called to buy from the staple ranges of homewares, toiletries and gardening.

The have-a-go culture at Woolworths had encouraged Buyers to broaden the firm's offer and experiment with a wider range of products. For example the sweet department had been extended to include tinned fruit and then cream to go with it, and, to complete the picnic, the selection even included tinned tuna fish! The food ranges consisted virtually entirely of special opportunity buys - but stores could always be relied on for tinned peaches and cream as an alternative to pic'n'mix sweets.

 

West Value Pure English Cream - sold for sixpence for 6 oz tin at Woolworths in 1939 (170 grams for 2.5p, the equivalent of 14p per litre)

 

The North End Croydon store fortified for the blitz at Christmas 1939

Woolies' Buyers would have liked to believe that the exceptional sales of the tins were the result of their skills. But the reality was very different.

The deteriorating diplomatic situation in Europe had forced re-armament and preparations for war. Gas mask drills accentuated the worries and encouraged 'canny' shoppers to pack their cupboards with as many tinned foodstuffs as possible, anticipating future shortages. Later these hoards provided birthday teas and wedding gifts at the height of the World War.

By Christmas 1939 stocks were running thin, as many suppliers converted their factories to make war essentials. Despite this initially only three food groups, sugar, bacon and ham were rationed.

 

Woolworths Chairman William Stephenson and Buyer Bill Lacey. The two worked closely with H. M. Government to mitigate some of the impacts of the Battle of BritainWithin days of the outbreak of War, the British Government asked for help from Woolworth Chairman, William Stephenson. They asked him to them to help them make sure that the RAF had enough planes to repel the Germans in the role of Head of Aircraft Production at the Air Ministry. The job gave the firm a hotline to the very heart of Gonvernment.

Stephenson and the store chain's Food Buyer Bill Lacey persuaded the powers-that-be not to ration ice-cream, biscuits and chocolate. In exchange stocks would be reserved for the stores in the towns and cities facing the worst bombardment. It was hoped that the initiative, and a similar venture for patriotic comics and jigsaw puzzles, would help maintain public morale.

 

Symingtons Table Cremes were a new product for Woolworths at the start of World War II. They needed no sugar - the buyer just had to add water to make a tasty sweet!


Lacey experimented with new food products that were nourishing and could be produced cheaply. Symingtons Powdered Soups and Table Cremes (Blancmanges using artificial sweeteners) were hurried to the shelves and sold for sixpence under a 'just add water' banner, long before the advent of the cup-a-soup generation. He also secured stocks of whale meat and snook. These took the place of earlier deals on tuna fish, salmon chunks and pork luncheon meat. Customers remember that they tasted rubbery and somehow 'wrong' - even after following the instructions to soak the whale meat in vinegar overnight. Despite the shortcomings, most customers still considered them preferable to the alternative, horse meat.

 

 

Despite the decision to ration the sales of sugar in January 1940, as late as the summer Cadbury's were still able to advertise that their teatime biscuits were available in 'all Woolworth stores'. Sweet rationing was introduced in 1942. The new rules, which were only lifted in 1953 a full eight years after the end of the war, gave an allowance of seven ounces (200 grams) to everyone over five years old.

 

Cadbury's biscuits were still available 'in all Woolworths stores' when the manufacturer placed this advertisement in a company magazine in the Summer of 1940News of the introduction of sweet rationing in 1942 prompted long queues at pic'n'mix counters in Woolworths stores across the United Kingdom. The picture shows the reaction in Plymouth, where Woolworths was trading a temporary store in the City market

 

Many of the stores' older colleagues and customers have fond memories of the steps that Woolworths staff took to redistribute sweet coupons. Many adults didn't eat sweets and would hand in their coupons to staff 'for the little ones'. Two retirees from the Camberley store remember that no child was ever sent away with nothing, thanks to the generosity of their elder clientele.

The 200g ration was the equivalent of just one sweet a day for most products in the Woolworth range. Despite the small quantity, by 1943 sweets were in very short supply, and having coupons did not guarantee that people would be able to find any to buy.

 

Save your chocolate ration for the children - a wartime plea to the public from Cadbury's


The increasing shortages as the war continued were reflected in Cadbury's advertising. Three years after boasting that biscuits were available in all Woolworth stores, Cadbury placed advertisements in the popular Picture Post magazine, asking people to save the chocolate for children, who needed its nutrition the most, when limited stock became available again.

Woolworth's role in sharing out the ration, and finding a little extra for children, served to grow the sense of community. It may partly explain the strong emotional bond that many customers still feel with the brand.

In Jersey and Guernsey invading German soldiers were surprised to find chocolate on sale at Woolworth's, months after supplies had run out in their shops at home. Colleagues remember that the soldiers respectfully joined the back of the queue and waited their turn, paying in pennies and saying a polite 'zank you very much'.

 

Coupons became a way of life - and an extra bureacracy for store staff to deal with - as rationing started to bite in 1942 and 1943
By 1942 coupons had become part of the British way of life and a key part of the store routine. Scissors and little scraps of paper - and the secret stack of spares for children and deserving causes under the counter - became a feature at more than 20,000 cash registers in 767 stores!

Everyone expected that as soon as the Allies won the war - as they surely would - rationing would end. But the reality, as you can read in our 1950s gallery, was that shortages and rationing got more severe in the late 1940s. Sweets remained rationed until 1953. When the restrictions finally ended, it seemed that every adult and child in the land joined the queue at Woolworths to stock up!

 

Fast links to Original Virtual Museum exhibits

Pic'n'Mix and Sweets Gallery

Yankee Doodle Candy    Tuppence a Quarter    Visit a 1930s Sweet Factory

Rationing in World War II   A new world - the 1950s    Building a legend

Europe's biggest sweet shop     Candy Kings?    The Good Ship Lollipop

Museum Navigation

Pic'n'Mix and Sweets Gallery     Home Page    Interactive

 
Fully illustrated 194 page history of Woolworths, or a selection of professionally authored DVDs in our on-line shop