Person    | Male  Born 29/9/1831  Died 24/1/1907

William Whiteley

Categories: Commerce, Tragedy

Entrepreneur and founder of Whiteley's department store on Queensway, now Whiteleys shopping centre. A bequest from his will formed Whiteley Village.

Born in Yorkshire and, 1848, apprenticed to a draper in Wakefield. Following a visit to the Great Exhibition in 1851 he came to London immediately his apprenticeship was over. He lived frugally and worked in shops until he had enough saved to open his own business at 31 Westbourne Grove in 1863. He expanded into neighbouring properties and extended his range from linens to include foods, imported goods, etc. becoming a true department store. It was destroyed in a huge fire in 1887, but quickly rebuilt.

In 1907 Whiteley was murdered by Horace George Rayner who apparently believed Whiteley to be his father. Black Kalendar has a full version of the story from which we understand that Whiteley had had an affair with Rayner's mother's sister and had a son by her. Rayner claimed that members of his family had told him that Whiteley was also his father. Rayner obtained an interview with Whiteley at his office in the Westbourne Grove store and asked for money. When Whiteley refused Rayner shot and killed him and then shot himself in the head but managed only a serious injury. Convicted of murder he was originally sentenced to death but this was commuted to life imprisonment and he was released in 1919.

In 1911 a new store designed by J. J. Joass  and John Belcher was built in Queensway (then called Queens Road), claimed to be the largest shop in the world. In the 1950s the upper floors were converted to office space which was used by LEO Computers, and named Hartree House.

The store closed in 1981 and reopened in 1989 as a shopping centre. The facade and some staircases remain.

Both the plaque and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography gives Whiteley's birthplace as Agbrigg, south-east of Wakefield, but Wikipedia disagrees and puts forward the nearby small village of Purston instead.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
William Whiteley

Commemorated ati

Wiliam Whiteley - biographical plaque

William Whiteley, the founder of this Trust, was born at Agbrigg, Yorks on th...

Read More

William Whiteley - bust

1831    1907 William Whiteley {On ribbon:} labora et vive {Latin for: work a...

Read More

William Whiteley - plaque

The quotation is from Psalm 41.1.

Read More

Other Subjects

Harkness Roses

Harkness Roses

Rose growing company, founded in Yorkshire by brothers John and Robert Harkness, and still run as a family firm.

Group, Commerce, Gardens / Agriculture

1 memorial
J. T. Pedder

J. T. Pedder

John Thomas Pedder was born in 1823 in Romford, Essex, the second of the eighteen children of Daniel Pedder (1799-1876) and Mary Ann Pedder née Dunnings (1801-1869). His father was a leather currie...

Person, Commerce

2 memorials
Burmantofts

Burmantofts

Manufacturers of ceramic pipes and construction materials, named after the Burmantofts district of Leeds. The business began when fire clay was discovered in a coal mine owned by William Wilcox and...

Group, Commerce

1 memorial
N. Spyropoulos (London) Ltd

N. Spyropoulos (London) Ltd

Trader at Covent Garden Market at its original site.

Group, Commerce

1 memorial
Joseph da Costa Andrade

Joseph da Costa Andrade

This person's grave was destroyed by a WW2 bomb. The name is on the south-west face of the pedestal. Joseph da Costa Andrade was born circa 1836 in London. He was the fifth of the eleven children ...

Person, Commerce, Community / Clubs, Liveries & Guilds

1 memorial

Previously viewed

Margaret Roper

Margaret Roper

Daughter of Sir Thomas More. After her executed father’s parboiled head had been displayed on a pike at London bridge for the required month, she bribed the keeper to give it to her. She pickled it...

Person, Friend / family

2 memorials
Company Sergeant Major Sydney George Ellis Jones, MC

Company Sergeant Major Sydney George Ellis Jones, MC

Sydney George Ellis Jones was born in 1888, one of the five children of Thomas Jones and Mary Ellen Jones. His birth was registered in the 1st quarter of 1888 in the Peckham registration district. ...

Person, Armed Forces, Belgium

War dead, WW1
1 memorial
Spiritualist Temple - Ellis

Spiritualist Temple - Ellis

NW1, Rochester Square, Rochester Square Spiritualist Temple

The wooden cross atop the building supports a neon cross, wired to an electrical box so rusty that we doubt it still lights the way for N...

1 subject commemorated
King Olav V of Norway

King Olav V of Norway

Born Prince Alexander of Denmark in Sandringham, Norfolk. Parents: Haakon VII (first King of Norway following the dissolution of the union with Sweden) and Maud of Wales (daughter of our Edward VII...

Person, Royalty, Norway

3 memorials
Tom Paget

Tom Paget

Sculptor and medallist. Born in Watford to an artistic family as Thomas Humphrey Paget but known as Humphrey Paget (although the plaque names him as Tom Paget). Commissioned for coins featuring Edw...

Person, Sculpture

1 memorial