Public Company
But the Harrods family decided they had enough of retail, and in
1889 the store became a public company. The 1890s were boom time, and new
departments were added – including the Harrods Bank and Estate Agency – as well
as the very first sale or "Winter Clearance" in 1894. The new
Managing Director Richard Burbidge was well ahead of his time, introducing the
world’s first escalator in 1898 - with brandy at the top to revive nervous
customers - shortening working hours for his 200 staff, and the devising of a
grand plan to build the world’s most luxurious department store.
The Terracotta Palace
Burbidge’s audacity was as
monumental as the grand store he started building in 1901. Designed by
architect of Claridge’s Hotel C.W. Stephens it was positively palatial, with a
frontage clad in terracotta tiles adorned with swags, cherubs, pilasters and
swirling Art Nouveau windows – and topped by a baroque dome, which still
contains nothing more exciting than a water tank.
Inside, the magnificent interiors
included vivid Royal Doulton tiles – still in place in the Meat Hall – fine
rococo plasterwork created by Parisian craftsmen, and a vast tea room with an
Art Nouveau skylight, now the Georgian Restaurant. Harrods instantly became London’s most fashionable store.
In the early 1900s, writer Arnold
Bennett based his novel Hugo on the store, while Harrods was recreated on the London stage in 1907 in the hugely successful musical comedy
‘Our Miss Gibbs’.
With 91 departments, the store occupied just the ground and
first floors of the building.The four storeys above were made up
of lavishly appointed mansion flats, whose stately entrance can still be seen
in Hans Road. Even the newly built Selfridges in Oxford Street could not compete.
In 1927 the stores fought neck and
neck to achieve the highest profits. However Gordon Selfridge lost, and his
gift of a silver replica of Harrods still sits on the lower ground floor of the
store.