Debenhams plc was a British department store chain that operated in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark, as well as franchised locations across Europe and the Asia Pacific.
The company was founded in 1778 as a single store in London and grew to 178 locations across those countries, also owning the Danish department store chain Magasin du Nord. In its final years, its headquarters were within the premises of its flagship store in Oxford Street, London. The range of goods sold included middle-to-high-end clothing, beauty, household items, and furniture.
The company suffered financial difficulties in the 21st century and entered administration twice, in April 2019 and April 2020. In November 2020, Debenhams' main concession operator Arcadia also entered administration, leading to the collapse of potential rescue talks with JD Sports and Frasers Group. As a result, Debenhams announced it would be liquidated.
The Debenhams brand and website were purchased by the online retailer Boohoo for £55M in January 2021. However, Boohoo did not retain any stores, meaning the loss of up to 12,000 jobs. Boohoo relaunched the website as Debenhams.com on 12 April 2021 under its own company, Debenhams.com Online Limited, when Debenhams' stores reopened to begin closing down sales following a relaxation of some COVID-19 restrictions. After 243 years in business, the remaining Debenhams department stores closed for the final time during May 2021.
Until 2025, Debenhams continued in the Middle East through a licensing agreement, operated by Alshaya Group.
The business was formed in 1778 by William Clark, who began trading at 44 Wigmore Street in London as a drapers' store. In 1813, William Debenham became a partner and the corporate name changed to Clark & Debenham. The shop was later renamed Cavendish House and sold drapery, silks, haberdashery, millinery, hosiery, lace, and family mourning goods. As the trade grew, the partners determined to expand the business by opening branches in Cheltenham and Harrogate.
By 1823, Clark & Debenham had opened a small drapery business at 3 Promenade Rooms, Cheltenham, selling a selection of silks, muslins, shawls, gloves, lace and fancy goods. In 1837, Clark retired from the business and Debenham took two of his most trusted staff, William Pooley and John Smith, as partners, trading in both London and Cheltenham as Debenham, Pooley & Smith. By 1840, the management of the Cheltenham branch appears to have been given to Clement Freebody, Debenham's brother-in-law. Around 1843, another branch shop was launched in Harrogate.
Extended and refurbished premises opened in Cheltenham in October 1844. Pooley and Smith retired from the business in 1851 when Debenham took his son, William, and Clement Freebody into partnership, trading as Debenham, Son & Freebody. At this time all three shops in London, Cheltenham, and Harrogate were trading in similar goods and issued a joint catalogue, called the Fashion Book, that was the basis of an extensive mail-order trade. In 1876 when Freebody retired, a new partnership, Debenham & Hewitt, was formed. George Hewitt appears to have worked at the Cheltenham store as a draper's assistant during the early 1860s but details of his subsequent career are not known. By 1883, George Hewitt was the sole owner of the Cheltenham business, Frank and William Debenham having withdrawn to manage the London store as a separate concern.
The business was incorporated as Debenhams Limited in 1905. A new headquarters building, which was designed by William Wallace and James Glen Sivewright Gibson and built by Trollope & Colls, was completed in Wigmore Street in 1908. Debenhams at this time did not operate any other department stores, but did supply to others across the country via its wholesale business. It was because of the debts owed to them through their wholesaling deals that they acquired control over Marshall & Snelgrove at Oxford Street and Harvey Nichols in Knightsbridge both in London in 1919. The business at this time was run by Ernest Debenham and his close friend Frederick Oliver. In 1926, Oliver retired, and upon the advice of the Whitehall Trust, Debenhams Securities was formed to buy Oliver's share in the business, with Ernest Debenham as chair and being joined by Frederick Richmond and Maurice Wright. The business also operated the London booksellers J & E Bumpus.
However, during the mid-1920s, several new investment groups were created and started buying up regional drapers and department stores. Clarence Hatry had created the Drapery Trust in 1925, while Charterhouse Bank's company, Charterhouse Investments Trust (under Sir Arthur Wheeler, 1st Baronet), had created United Drapery Stores in 1927, and Selfridge Provincial Stores was created by James White and Gordon Selfridge in 1926. These were seen to be a threat to Debenhams' wholesale business, as the company would lose sales to these new combined groups. Frederick Richmond and Maurice Wright thought it was too late to start creating a provincial group, so started negotiations with Clarence Hatry in 1927 to purchase the Drapery Trust. By November the deal was agreed for £2,350,000, mostly funded through Hatry's company Austin Friars Trust purchasing £1,600,000 of Debenhams shares.
As part of the deal, Ernest Debenham was forced out of the business, along with his son Peter. In a letter to The Times, Ernest wrote
A month ago I had no intention of retiring from the management of Debenhams Securities. Indeed, I had every reason to hope that the connection of myself and my family with that business would be indefinitely prolonged. When the offer was made to purchase all or any of the ordinary shares in Debenhams Securities, circumstances of no interest to the general investing public compelled me to accept the offer.
The new enlarged company was offered to the public in February 1928, with the release of 2 million preference shares through merchant bank M. Samuel & Co, with the company being first listed on the London Stock Exchange later that year. In 1929, as part of his fraudulent plan to raise the cash for his deal to purchase United Steel, Hatry forged £478,100 of shares in the Drapery Trust, but by September 1929 he had confessed to his crimes. The connection of Clarence Hatry to Debenhams plunged the company into a crisis once his finances started to unravel, in addition to the Drapery Trust dividend collapsing and its export business diving due to the economy. Maurice Wright completed a rewriting of the capital in 1934, and merged the three operations, Debenhams, Debenhams Securities and Drapery Trust, slashing the company's issued capital from £15,100,000 to £6,000,000. Wright would later be made Managing Director, before becoming Chairman in 1948.
During the 1930s and 1940s the company continued to expand, becoming the biggest department store company in the country by 1948, with the stores retaining their original names until a reorganisation in the 1970s. In 1944 the company announced a post-tax profit of £249,605. An example of these acquisitions was the purchase of the Norwich stores of Buntings and Chamberlains in 1949, leading to their controlling four of the city's department stores. During 1957, the company purchased the ladies fashion store, Cresta, from W. Garfield Weston's Howardsgate Holdings. In 1959 the business failed in a takeover of rival department store group Harrods, rivalling United Drapery Stores and eventual winner House of Fraser.
The company closed several branches in 1970, with Birmingham (Marshall & Snelgrove, formerly Warwick House), Manchester (Marshall & Snelgrove in St Annes Place), Sheffield (Marshall & Snelgrove, Leopold Street) and Southsea (Plummers, Palmerston Road) properties being sold by auction. In 1972, United Drapery Stores made an offer to purchase Debenhams, along with interest from Sears plc and Tesco, but were fought off by chairman Sir Anthony Burney. The company entered the superstore revolution by opening two Scan Superstores, which sold an assortment of Debenhams normal products in a supermarket like environment. In 1976 the company acquired Browns of Chester. It remained the only one of the company's UK stores to have retained an individual identity until all stores closed in 2021. The business diversified during the 1970s buying South East based supermarket group Cater Brothers in 1972, after the death of its chairman Leslie Cater. Using the new purchasing power Debenhams modernised its 40 food halls within its stores, branding them Cater's Food Halls, and opened two new Cater superstores. However the business declined in the intense marketplace and in 1979 the chain was sold to Allied Suppliers who converted the Cater stores into their Presto format. Debenham's other experiment into the superstore market, the two Scan Superstores were sold to Tesco in February 1978. Other diversifications included Greens Cameras & High-Fi and New Dimension, a home furniture and furnishing business. The company continued to open new stores, with Mansfield, Stirling and Eltham being opened in 1977. The company at times struggled in the 1970s, with a former chief executive stating it had