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 Lewis’s Department Store Liverpool is the last of
the Lewis’s Stores in the UK to remain open into the Twenty-First Century,
closure plans having been announced early in 2010. It is also the oldest of the stores, having
been opened one hundred and fifty-four years earlier in 1856. The end of an era, the once mighty empire
of the Lewis’s Brand is consigned to history.
At the height of its success, Lewis’s had an unrivalled buying power,
making it possible to discount almost everything it sold, passing on
significant and meaningful savings to its customers, at the same time giving
them the ultimate shopping experience – an entire day out in one shop – which
included being fed, and also pampered with hairdressing and beauty
treatments. With a bank on hand to recharge your purse, you didn’t need to go
anywhere else…
Image © Martins Bank
Archive Collections
Sadly, it
is more than twenty years since the complete closure of Lewis’s Bank, the
accounts being absorbed into owners Lloyds Bank. The pictures on this page are currently all
we have of Lewis’s Bank Liverpool in its heyday…
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Images © Martins Bank
Archive Collections
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To mark
Lewis’s Bank being welcomed into the fold, the entire staff of Liverpool
Branch pose for the very first Lewis’s Bank feature in Martins Bank
Magazine’s Winter 1958 Issue. At the
time that Martins acquires the bank, many of Lewis’s staff members have
distinguished service records - some up to thirty years - and Martins Bank
Magazine includes the figures in the list of participants in this group
photograph:
Were you in this photograph? Did
you work at Lewis’s Bank in Liverpool?
Perhaps you are related to someone who did – we’d love to hear your
memories, and to receive copies of photos or other memorabilia from Lewis’s
Bank, to help us further build the Archive…
You can get in touch with us by
clicking HERE
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Back
Row
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Third
Row
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Second
Row
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Front
Row
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A M Ferns
D A Dickie
B E Thomas
B Hughes
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J Marshall
P M Howarth
M A Hamilton
J Barlow
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J A James
S Mitchell
E Carr (10yrs)
M Hanlon (10
yrs)
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E J Newland
J Roebuck
P Doyle
J D Millar
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D Price
P M Jarvis
M N Lawton
A E Singleton (14 yrs)
E Foxcroft
R M Hynes
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M Dillon (10
yrs)
F S Yates
F E Reynard (29
yrs)
W O'Dwyer (29
yrs)
D Evans (15
yrs)
A Lambert (30
yrs)
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G M Dickinson
N M George (30
yrs)
J Stephens
P B Corica
Mr J A Baigent
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Mr F W Hall
M G McDougall (30 yrs)
W Bean (10
yrs)
S M Littler
D J Wright
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With an
amazing NINE floors, above and below the ground, the Ranelagh Street Store is
shown here a year or so before its closure, ending 154 years of service to
the people of Liverpool. The once
mighty buying power of Lewis’s, the ability to sell at discount prices
whilst offering every possible service under one roof, all has sadly gone
forever. So too has the once
extremely popular and very profitable Lewis’s Bank. What both
organisations once provided, is now available online… This 1962 display in
the window of Lewis’s Department store in Liverpool demonstrates to
customers the good sense of being able to bank and shop in the same place!
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The busy children’s counter is popular with parents too,
as it enables the whole family to do their banking together on a Saturday
afternoon.
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Lewis’s Department Store in Ranelagh Street was used as a
bomb shelter in 1941, and there was a lot of bomb damage to parts of the
City then, including the complete destruction of Martins Bank’s South John
Street Branch, and also of their branch at Strand Road Bootle.
Apart from the reference “until suitable accommodation provided in
additional space that will shortly be available” mentioned in
this advertisement, we currently have no further information as to why
Lewis’s Bank Liverpool needed to be moved to temporary premises in the
Basnett Gallery of the City’s BON MARCHE store in 1941.
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1927
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1933
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1941
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