John Lewis Partnership
John Lewis Partnership PLC is a British company that operates John Lewis & Partners department stores, Waitrose supermarkets, financial services and a build to rent operation. The public limited company is owned by a trust on behalf of all its employees, known as Partners, who share the responsibilities and rewards of ownership. John Lewis has around 74,000 employees as of 2024.
History
1860s origins
opened a drapery shop at 132 Oxford Street, London, in 1864. Born in Shepton Mallet in Somerset in 1836, he had been apprenticed at 14 to a linen draper in Wells. He came to London in 1856 and worked as a salesman for Peter Robinson, an Oxford Street draper, rising to be his silk buyer. In 1864, he declined Robinson's offer of a partnership, and rented his own premises on the north side of Oxford Street, on part of the site now occupied by the department store which bears his name. There he sold silk and woollen cloth and haberdashery. His retailing philosophy was to buy good quality merchandise and sell it at a modest 'mark up'. Although he carried a wide range of merchandise, he was less concerned about displaying it and never advertised it. His skill lay in sourcing the goods he sold, and most mornings he would go to the City of London, accompanied by a man with a hand barrow. Later he would make trips to Paris to buy silks.Lewis spurned holidays and games and devoted himself entirely to the business, which was successful. He invested the money he made from it in residential and small retail properties, many of which he never visited. He expanded the Oxford Street business by renting neighbouring properties on Oxford Street and then along Holles Street, and gradually moved into other classes of merchandise: first the new area of ready-made women's apparel, and later children's wear and furniture. He never held 'sales', saying that he was intent on building a sound, permanent business.
In 1884, aged 48, Lewis married Eliza Baker, a schoolmistress with a university education, who was 18 years his junior. They set up home in a mansion on the edge of Hampstead Heath, for which Lewis made up the name Spedan Tower after his aunt, Ann Speed, and when Eliza bore a son in 1885, he was called John Spedan Lewis. A second son, Oswald Lewis, was born in 1887. After Westminster School, both sons joined Lewis in the business, and he gave each of them a quarter share of it on their twenty-first birthdays.
1900s family disagreements
There was constant quarrelling between Lewis and his sons. By 1909, Oswald wanted out, and Lewis senior reluctantly agreed to buy back Oswald's quarter share of the business for £50,000. Oswald went to study at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, qualified as a barrister, and became a cavalry officer in 1914. He was injured and discharged in 1916, whereupon he accepted an invitation from his father to rejoin the business.Lewis had several run-ins with Lord Howard de Walden, his Oxford Street landlord, and in 1903 he spent three weeks in Brixton Prison for defying a court order obtained by de Walden. In 1911, de Walden sued him for libel. Lewis was found guilty, but the jury awarded damages of just a farthing.
In 1906, Lewis bought a controlling interest in the Sloane Square–based business Peter Jones Limited, named after the eponymous founder Peter Rees Jones who had died the previous year. Lewis walked from Oxford Street with the £20,000 purchase price in banknotes.
1910s
In the next 13 years, the Peter Jones business was unprofitableno dividends were paid to Lewis and the external shareholdersand in desperation, in 1914 Lewis appointed his son Spedan as chairman of Peter Jones. This gave Spedan Lewis complete control, and he decided that the underlying problem was that the staff had no incentive to do a good day's work because their own interests were not in line with those of the business. He shortened their working day and instituted a system of commission for each department, paying selling staff amounts based on turnover. He held regular meetings at which staff could air any grievances directly with him. In 1916, after a disagreement with his father, Spedan Lewis exchanged his 25% interest in the Oxford Street business for Lewis's shares in Peter Jones Limited. He made improvements in staff conditions, including granting a third week's paid holiday each year. He had hot and cold running water installed in the staff bedrooms over the shop. In 1918, he started publishing a fortnightly newspaper telling staff how the business was faring. In 1919, he instituted a staff council meeting, the first decision of which was that staff should be paid weekly instead of four-weekly. The business prospered: there was a profit of £20,000 in 1920. Spedan Lewis's radical idea was that the profits generated by the business should not be paid solely to shareholders as a reward for their capital. Shareholders should receive a reasonable but limited return, and labour should be the recipient of the excess. His concept of 'fairer shares' involved sharing gain, knowledge, and power. In 1920, Spedan started distributing Peter Jones preference shares to staff, who were referred to as Partners.1920s
The early 1920s were not successful for Peter Jones. Dividends on preference shares, many of which were held by employees, were not paid. In 1924, there was a reconciliation between John Lewis and Spedan Lewis. Trade at Oxford Street had fared better, and John Lewis made a cash injection into the Sloane Square business.In 1925, Spedan Lewis devised the slogan "never knowingly undersold" at Peter Jones. Intended mainly as a control on sourcing merchandise, it also meant that customers could shop knowing that they were not paying more at Peter Jones than they could buy identical goods for at other stores. This principle, which was refined several times, most notably to exclude retailers who trade only online and to include extended insurance and delivery charges when comparing prices, was honoured until August 2022, when it was replaced with a general commitment to providing competitive value on their own-label merchandise. In 2024, the slogan returned and the customer price promise was refined once more.
By 1926, Lewis senior was 90, Spedan was impatient to gain control of John Lewis in Oxford Street so that he could implement his radical ideas there, and Oswald again wanted out. Without telling their father, Spedan took out a bank loan and bought out Oswald's inheritance. After going around the world, Oswald embarked on a political career, becoming Conservative Party MP for Colchester in 1929, and holding the seat until 1945. Spedan Lewis became the sole owner in the Oxford Street business after John Lewis died aged 92 in 1928.
In 1929, Spedan Lewis signed a deed of settlement, which transferred shares in John Lewis & Co. Limited and Peter Jones Limited to trustees. The profits of the combined business would be distributed to its employees, either as cash or as fixed-interest stock in the new company: John Lewis Partnership Limited.
1930s expansion
In 1933, John Lewis started acquiring other retail businesses, buying Jessop & Son of Nottingham, and Lance & Lance of Weston-super-Mare. In 1934, it acquired Knight & Lee in Southsea, and Tyrrell & Green in Southampton. It also started rebuilding Peter Jones to a modern design. In 1937, it bought Waitrose, which operated ten counter-service grocery shops in London and the home counties.1940s and the Second World War
The biggest acquisition came in 1940 when John Lewis paid £30,000 for Selfridge Provincial Stores Limited, which owned 16 shops: John Barnes in Hampstead, Blinkhorn & Son in Gloucester and Stroud, Bon Marché in Brixton, Buckleys in Harrogate, A H Bull in Reading, Caleys in Windsor, Cole Brothers in Sheffield, Holdrons in Peckham, Jones Brothers in Holloway, George Henry Lee in Liverpool, Pratts in Streatham, Quin & Axten in Brixton, Robert Sayle in Cambridge, Thomsons in Peterborough and Trewin Brothers in Watford, substantially increasing the size of the business.The Second World War took its toll, and several stores were damaged by bombing, notably the 'west house' of John Lewis in Oxford Street, which was lost completely in September 1940.
1950s
In 1950, Spedan Lewis executed a second deed of settlement, which passed ownership of John Lewis to trustees to hold for the benefit of those who worked in the business. He continued to manage it as if he were still the owner, saying in 1957 that it was necessary to concentrate management in one pair of hands.Spedan Lewis also retained for himself the right to choose his successor when he retired on his 70th birthday in 1955. He had originally intended that Michael Watkins, his right-hand man for many years, would succeed him as chairman, but Watkins died in 1950. Spedan asked his son, Edward Lewis, if he would fill the role, but he declined. Spedan appointed a loyal, long-serving lieutenant, Bernard Miller, but expressed the hope that in due course Edward would succeed Miller as chairman. In the event, Miller was succeeded by Peter Lewis, the son of Oswald Lewis.
In 1953 John Lewis sold several small stores but acquired two large ones: Heelas in Reading and Bainbridge in Newcastle upon Tyne. The rebuilt store on Oxford Street was reopened in 1960, and the sculpture Winged Figure by Barbara Hepworth was added in 1963.
2000s
To accommodate national advertising, in 2002, the company began the process of renaming department stores not branded as John Lewis with the nationally recognisable name. Peter Jones in London remains the sole exception to this policy. The company experimented with smaller format stores, adding 12 At Home shops and 2 Convenience-driven stores, alongside 3 more full-line department stores.John Lewis faced a series of strikes in 2012 and 2013 by cleaners, who had been outsourced, regarding pay.
The group made its first-ever half-year operating loss of £26 million in the first half of 2019. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 16 loss-making John Lewis stores were closed.
In December 2020, John Lewis appointed Rita Clifton as deputy chairman.
In June 2025, the company appointed Anna Braithwaite as its chief commercial officer, effective from 1 October 2025.