The Rise and Demise of the Corner Shop
Useful historical Information and sources
The Corner Shop – A British Institution
The corner shop has been a British institution for hundreds of years. In the early nineteenth century when French leader Napoleon was asked what he thought of the UK he famously replied: "Britain is nothing more than a nation of shopkeepers."
At the time Napoleon made his comment there was only one kind of shop in Britain,small shops independently run by a family who lived above the premises. By the nineteenth century each town had its own identity as independent specialist shops such as milliners, haberdashers, drapers, ironmongers, fishmongers, and chemists could be found on the High Street alongside grocers and butchers.
The corner shop started to become a familiar sight during the industrial revolution. As cities and towns expanded quickly people began to live further and further away from the central shopping areas. When rows or terraces of new houses were built, the end of the row was almost always built as a shop. These often had a door on the corner of the building rather than at the front.
Before the advent of fridges, freezers and products that could be stored for months on end, people would need to be able to easily walk to their local shop to buy what they needed on a daily basis. Corner shops were designed to sell all sorts of goods and offered longer opening hours than the large high street shops.The shopkeeper would get to know his regular customers asthe corner shop often served just a small number of streets. He knew what goods they were likely to buy, and he knew who he could trust to buy groceries on credit during the week with a promise to settle the bill on pay-day.
In the 1920s and 1930s there was a change in the design of the growing suburbs. Developers moved away from the idea of a single corner shop at the end of a row of houses and started to include a small collection of specialist shops grouped together as part of the housing development.These shops were still at the heart of the community and run by local families.
A New Lease of Life
By the middle of the twentieth century, as new communities arrived in Britain, small independent and corner shops began to change. New families were occupying them, catering for established tastes and requirements, as well as stocking new products to satisfy the demand from the new communities settling in Britain who wanted products that reminded them of home. Many people were missing their traditional foods and products and there was a niche in the market for other goods such as clothes and religious items.
The independent or corner shop has however, been in decline for decades, since the advent of the supermarket. Research suggests that corner shops are disappearing at a rate of around 2000 shops per year.
Until the 1950 Shops Act was repealed in 1994 it was illegal for most shops to open after 8:00pm and on Sundays, except to sell perishable goods which included newspapers, magazines and vegetables. This had given corner shops and other independent stores an advantage over their larger competitors.
The Rise of the Supermarket in Britain.
Supermarkets emerged in America in the early twentieth century, but developed in Britain much later. The first self service food shops in the UK were started by the co-operative movement before the end of the Second World War, but this new way of retailing did not catch on. The development of self service shops and the supermarket in Britain was held back by food rationing during the war.
Rationing finally ended in 1954 and there was a rapid growth in spending on consumer products which allowed the supermarket to develop. Both the government and some grocers were keen to promote self service stores, as they were thought to be more efficient for both the shopper and shop keeper as less personal service was needed. Tesco and Sainsbury’s were some of the first stores to introduce self service’. By 1950 Tesco had twenty self service shops and thirty five by May 1951. By 1969 there were 3400 supermarkets in Great Britain, today there could be as many as 20,500.
These days people no longer need to shop daily. Increased car ownership allows shoppers to travel further and transport more than their daily requirements. Some large supermarkets are open 24hours a day fulfilling the public demand for a large choice and variety of new products all year round. The large supermarkets have not only taken trade away from the smaller local shops but they have, in recent years, begun to encroach on the corner shop location too. Now, rather than finding an independent grocery store on every corner, you are just as likely to find a small branch of a large chain.
In 1945, there were 500,000 independent retailers. Today the number is down to 30,000 with a further 2,000 going out of business every year. However, it is clear that despite this there remains a dedicated, hard working group of independent retailers who are determined to keep this British tradition alive.
Published Quotes
“Small and independent shops may vanish from the UK's High Streets by as soon as 2015, politicians have warned”
BBC business website 15th Feb 2006
"The erosion of small shops is viewed as the erosion of the social glue that binds communities together"
The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Small Shops in a report entitled High Street Britain: 2015.
“Many communities will be severely disadvantaged by the loss of their small shops. Such local businesses can be a focus for community activity, as well as providing employment and vital products and services. Many communities will no longer be able to cater for the needs of its residents if the retail sector is too heavily disrupted, leaving those affluent enough to relocate to other areas [and] the traditional shopping areas abandoned…’
The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Small Shops in a report entitled High Street Britain: 2015.
As the supermarket giant has grown, so too has the number of places in the UK dubbed 'Tesco town'. In Inverness more than 50p in every pound spent on food by the city's 66,000 residents is done so at a Tesco checkout and similar dominance in other towns has sparked controversy.Because of their size, supermarkets have been accused by some of abusing their position by forcing smaller local shops out of business. According to non-profit organisation Ethical Network, local communities could be losing inward investment of up to £100bn every year because of supermarket centralisation…
The Telegraph 30th November 2010
Questions and answers
Q1. what percentage of shops in the UK are owned and managed by a sole trader?
A . Half of the 278,630 shops in the UK are owned and managed by a sole trader; 103,000 have fewer than five employees
Q2. How many people in Britain are employed in the retail sector?
A. The UK retail sector employs around 3 million people.
Retail is the largest employer in rural England, providing 16% of jobs
Q3. How much is spent in Britain on groceries every year
A. £76 billion
Q4. What percentage of the money spent on groceries in Britain is spent in supermarkets?
A. 80%
Q5. Britain’s corner shops are disappearing at a rate of how many per day?
A. 2000 per year which is five per day.
Q6. How many self service supermarkets were there in Britain in 1950?
A. In 1950 around 50 supermarkets were in existence, increasing in number to 572 by 1961. By 1969 there were 3400 supermarkets in Great Britain.
How do we know what shops there used to be in the past?
Trade directories are one of the best sources of information about business in a particular area. These list proprietors and the nature of their business and were published every year.
Electoral registers and census records can also help us to build a picture of the history of a shop site.
Historical newspapers also provide information and adverts which can give us a wealth of information about what was sold, to whom, and the prices shops were charging in the past.
The Heritage Explorer website has more information to suit all key stages and historical photographs which can be used in the classroom
For internal and external images of shops go to “Images by theme”, “past shopping”.
For “How to trace the history of a building” go to the How to Guides
History of Sainsbury’s and teacher resources can be found at the Museum of Docklands website
and
BBC Learning Zone Class Clips has a teaching resource on Modern Supermarket Design