Remembering Liverpool Structures - George Henry Lee

As a family business, George Henry Lee was always held in high esteem by shoppers as one of the most exclusive shops in the city where it became a family tradition for some, drawn to the expertise of the departmental staff, and the highly formal customer service provided, including being led to the correct department by a 'shop walker' immediately upon entry to the shop.

It began in 1853 on Bassnet Street when George Henry Lee and his brother, Henry Boswell Lee Junior opened a bonnet warehouse on the same site where the department store would later be located, on the corner of Leigh Street. In 1874 the last of the Lee sons retired and control passed to Thomas Oakshott, who, in 1887, became the first tradesman to become Lord Mayor of Liverpool, an appointment which added to the prestige of the enterprise. It was he who created the store's buffet on the second floor in which tea, coffee and 'more substantial refreshments' could be enjoyed and was decorated by copies of religious paintings by the Italian master of the early Renaissance Giotto di Bondone. By then the store employed 1,000 people, which would later increase to 1,500. In 1906, Oakshott's two sons had a restaurant and a ladies' lounge built, reached by an iron bridge from what became the linen department. In 1910, the year Thomas Oakshott died, the company had then over 1,200 employees and the Bassnett Street frontage was rebuilt with elegant Edwardian marble pillars. During the 1920s it was refurbished and thus began an age of elegance when the store became the north-west's most exclusive shopping destination. Customers in 1920 would often arrive at the shop by horse and carriage to be met by their own personal shopper. With its wooden banisters and heavy wooden doors with brass fittings it also had a series of cubicles which served as a fitting room, where each assistant could use a table and chair outside the fitting room to write out the bill by hand, as they served just one cubicle. Even in complex areas such as haberdashery, the atmosphere was spacious and elegant with sweeping counters adding to the graceful appearance of the shop floor, while pillars and light fittings added the finishing touches.

Shortly after the First World War, the Oakshott family sold the shop to the American store owner, H Gordon Selfridge, who in turn sold the business to the John Lewis Partnership in 1940. Meanwhile across the road, a very different department store had developed, Bon Marché. However, during the 1950s its fortunes declined and, after a brief period of ownership by the Liverpool Co-operative Society, in 1961 it was also acquired by the John Lewis Partnership, who decided to merge it with George Henry Lee, with the name Bon Marche dropped entirely, and bridge was built to connect both stores over three levels. The shop then developed its own unique identity, dedicated to meeting the evolving needs of the community it served. 

It was now part of the city's fabric, the home of school uniforms and prams the size of carriages. Who remembers the model who used to walk around the waitress service restaurant on top floor, 'The Buttery', modelling the clothes in the mid 80s? The restaurant was furnished with flowers, bronze and marble statuettes and pillars. There was a polished mahogany counter with a rouge marble top. It was fitted with a pewter sink and two oyster trays. A small orchestra sometimes played in the restaurant where Whitstable oysters were a particular delight.
Here to some the store was a secular cathedral, where the menu in the restaurant offered 'aspic de foie gras' and people of standing sipped tea from bone china cups. Who remembers as a child getting lost in this eccentric old building, crossing the bridge unaccompanied, running down the access slopes instead of taking the pairs of steps that linked each section of floor, or trying not too make the glassware 'clink' as you crossed the 'bouncy' wooden floor? How many of us missed the splendours of the building, the stained glass windows, historic engravings, the sculpted cherubs and the numerous carvings on the exterior and the Greek key motif friezes in the coffee shop ceiling with a memorial to staff who gave their lives in the World Wars?

By the late 1980s, George Henry Lee benefited from a resurgence of investment into Liverpool after years of decline. Then in 2003, it was announced that John Lewis would relocate to a new, multi-million pound shop, as part of the Liverpool 1 project. Work began on the new shop in late 2005. Finally, on Thursday 29 May 2008, the new shop opened and Rapid Hardware and TK Maxx took over the beautiful old building. 

see also:- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2021/12/remembering-liverpool-structures_15.html