Free Shopgirls by Pamela Cox Page B

re-opening in 1895.
    Shoppers inside the Burlington Arcade, Mayfair, London,
c
.1910.
    The staff of Anderson and McAuley’s department store, Belfast, in the early 1900s.
    The ‘foundling’ heroines of
The Shop Girl
musical comedy in costume, 1895.
    A sketch of ‘Miss Bondfield On Tour’ – addressing a meeting of shop assistants in the St. George’s Hall, Hull – from
The Shop Assistant Journal
, July 1898.
    The notorious case of Miss Cass, a shopgirl arrested on Regent Street, London. As pictured in the
Illustrated Police News
, July 1887.
    The lively goings-on at Whiteley’s, as drawn in a comic penny paper from 1887.
    ‘The Delights of “Living-In”’, as depicted in
The Shop Assistant Journal
, March 1901.
    On 16 November 1898, Harrods unveiled a technological marvel: Britain’s first moving staircase.
    A Marks and Spencer Ltd stall – ‘Admission Free’ – 133 Grainger Market, Newcastle, 1 December 1906.
    Selfridges window display in its opening week, March 1909, showing just a few elegant mannequins rather than piles of stock as below.
    A fine example of a ‘stocky’ or ‘massed’ window display at Marshall & Snelgrove’s, with goods stacked or suspended from floor to ceiling. Photographed the same week that Selfridges opened.
    ‘London receiving her newest Institution’: a Selfridges newspaper advertisement touting the new store’s dedication ‘to women’s service’, 1909.
    Lucile’s fabulous shopgirl models in London, 1912.
    Over 200 suffragettes rush through the streets of London smashing shop windows with toffee hammers and other implements in protest, March 1912.
    Departmental manageresses, Annfield Plain Industrial Co-operative Society Ltd, Durham, 1920.
    One of Harrods’ ‘Green Ladies’ summoning a cab during the First World War.
    Women serving in a grocer’s shop during the First World War, taking the place of men who have enlisted in the army, August 1915.
    Shoppers outside the Co-operative Society Ltd in East Ham,
c
.1929.
    Woolworths shopgirls struggling to keep up with the Christmas rush, as shoppers crowd to buy novelties and decorations, 14 December 1937.
    Shopgirls from Marks and Spencer Ltd, enjoying their time at Dymchurch holiday camp, Kent in 1936.
    Firefighters at work in front of John Lewis, Oxford Street, London, the morning after highly explosive and incendiary German bombs caused widespread damage, 18 September 1940.
    A former Woolworths shopgirl working in a machine shop during the Second World War.
    London’s first self-service ‘help yourself’ store at Wood Green, September 1948. Note the wire baskets and a few shop assistants still on hand to help out.
    Two sets of identical twins, (left to right) Michelle Hellier, Nicole Hellier, Susy Young and Rosie Young, who worked as shopgirls at Biba, Kensington, west London. Photographed in September 1966.
    ‘This is your Company’, from the first pictorial style Annual Report produced by Woolworths, distributed to employees and shareholders, March 1958.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
    Many wonderful people made this book possible. Lauren Bennie is a tenacious and talented researcher and we owe her a very great deal. We would like to thank those who believed in the idea from its inception, especially Sarah Rigby, Georgina Capel, Anita Land, Julian Alexander, Liz Warner, Lisette Black and Walter Iuzzolino. The book accompanies a BBC Two series made by betty and we are also indebted to all those who shaped each of the three episodes and lifted this story to the screen.
    Lise Shapiro Sanders’ book on shopgirls inspired us from the start. Anna Davin very generously shared her thoughts and research notes on nineteenth-century life and gave us many early leads. Many other academics shared valuable ideas, including Geoffrey Crossick, Leonore Davidoff, Peter Gurney, Sean Nixon, Lynne Pettinger, Laura Ugolini, Amanda Wilkinson and Mike Winstanley.
    A host of archivists and curators helped us to unearth the experiences of