WH Smith once shaped the travel experience – and now it’s returning to its roots
- Written by Marrisa Joseph, Associate Professor of Organisation Studies & Business History, University of Reading
After 124 years as a familiar fixture to generations of customers, there will no longer be a place for WH Smith on UK high streets.
Modella Capital – a specialist retail investment company – is the new owner of the chain’s high street locations. For a purchase price of £76 million, it will take over 480 stores in retail parks, shopping centres and high streets. It is also expected to retain its 5,000 staff[1].
Initially, ten stores will close[2] with a further ten to be announced later. Importantly, the WH Smith brand is not being sold.
The high street stores will be rebranded as TJ Jones, a nostalgic and not so subtle nod to its predecessor. There is clearly an understanding that a family brand[3] still means something to consumers.
WH Smith is recognised globally due to its rapidly growing presence in airports[4]. Its travel divisions is set to remain in train stations, airports and hospitals.
These 1,200 stores in 32 countries account for around 85% of group profits[5]. The strategy[6] is to focus on key travel markets, as air passenger numbers are forecast to more than double globally by 2050[7].
Interestingly, by prioritising travel customers, WH Smith has gone full circle – returning to its Victorian roots as the main retailer of books and newspapers in railway stations. I have researched[8] the history of the British publishing industry – passengers picking up a newspaper or the latest bestseller at travel hubs is a practice that was pioneered by the brand that would go on to become WH Smith.
In 1792, newsagent Henry Walton Smith with his wife Anna started a small retailing business in Little Grosvenor Street in the west end of London. Their son William Henry took over the family firm in 1812. He expanded to include a “coach trade”[9] of London daily papers to the regional provinces outside the capital.
William took advantage of the revolution in the British publishing industry that came with the industrial age. From its introduction in 1814, the steam-powered printing press[10] brought down the cost of printing newspapers and books, opening more opportunities for literature.
In under 50 years, the sale of newspapers quadrupled[11], rising from 16 million a year in 1801 to more than 78 million by 1849. Increased literacy among adults and children created a market for new material, and as railways enabled new distribution networks[12] there were even more opportunities[13] to sell printed products.
The development of railway stations provided a surge in travel that was a novelty for many Victorians, who needed entertainment to keep them occupied during long journeys.
In 1848, Smith and his son secured an exclusive agreement to sell books and newspapers at railway stations owned by the London and North Western Railway. The first bookstall opened in Euston station in November that year, and by the end of the 1860s they operated more than 500 bookstalls along Britain’s railways.
This contract led to WH Smith dominating a large part of the book trade by the end of the 19th century. It continued to expand, and the first town shop opened in Gosport, Hampshire in 1901.
In 1850, Smith and son also made a deal with publisher George Routledge to supply and stock their railway outlets with his cheap series of reprints. These were known as “yellowbacks” as the prints were bound in thin yellow card with eye-catching artwork.
These were a precursor to the paperback, designed to be read on the train and then discarded. Selling at roughly half the price of a novel at the time, they were mass-market products that provided significant revenue for WH Smith – just as paperbacks do today.
Building on the opportunity of the growing travel market, the company broadened its offering to the public by partnering with Charles Edward Mudie[15], who founded Britain’s largest circulating library in 1842. At one point Mudie’s flagship location in New Oxford Street in London held more than 960,000 titles[16].
By 1859, Mudie had an agreement with WH Smith[17] to supply the bookstall[18] at Birmingham station – essentially creating a library department in the bookstall. Mudie supplied popular titles from London allowing “passengers to exchange books daily at the subscriber’s pleasure”.
For more than 170 years, WH Smith has grown from its origins as a retailer at railway stations to becoming a familiar presence in town and city centres across the UK. More recently it has been the butt of jokes online for its disorganised and messy stores[19].
But the decision to offload its high street premises underscores the fact that, just as in the Victorian era, travellers seeking entertainment for the journey will still turn to that old trusted brand.
References
- ^ 5,000 staff (www.bbc.co.uk)
- ^ ten stores will close (www.express.co.uk)
- ^ family brand (www.theguardian.com)
- ^ airports (www.whsmithplc.co.uk)
- ^ 85% of group profits (news.sky.com)
- ^ strategy (www.whsmithplc.co.uk)
- ^ by 2050 (aci.aero)
- ^ researched (link.springer.com)
- ^ “coach trade” (www.abebooks.co.uk)
- ^ steam-powered printing press (blog.oup.com)
- ^ quadrupled (www.abebooks.co.uk)
- ^ new distribution networks (www.routledge.com)
- ^ more opportunities (link.springer.com)
- ^ cktravels.com/Shutterstock (www.shutterstock.com)
- ^ Charles Edward Mudie (www.lindahall.org)
- ^ 960,000 titles (doi.org)
- ^ WH Smith (collections.reading.ac.uk)
- ^ supply the bookstall (oxfordre.com)
- ^ messy stores (www.retailgazette.co.uk)
