Harry Gordon Selfridge
Harry Gordon Selfridge, Sr. (11 January 1858 – 8 May 1947)[1][3] was an American retail magnate who founded the London-based department store Selfridges. The early years of his leadership of Selfridges led to his becoming one of the most respected and wealthy retail magnates in the United Kingdom. He was known as the 'Earl of Oxford Street'.[4]
Harry Gordon Selfridge
11 January 1858[1]
St Mark's Churchyard, Highcliffe
American
British[2]
Retail magnate
Founder of Selfridges
Born in Ripon, Wisconsin, and raised in Jackson, Michigan, Selfridge delivered newspapers and left school at 14 when he found work at a bank in Jackson. Selfridge eventually obtained a stock boy position at Marshall Field's department store in Chicago, where over the next 25 years, he rose to become a partner. In 1890, he married the wealthy Rose Buckingham who was from a prominent Chicago family.
In 1906, following a trip to London, Selfridge invested £400,000 to build a new department store in what was then the unfashionable western end of Oxford Street. Selfridges, Oxford Street, opened to the public on 15 March 1909, and Selfridge remained chairman until 1941. In 1947, he died in London at age 89.
Early life[edit]
Selfridge was born to Robert Oliver Selfridge and Lois Frances Selfridge (née Baxter) in Ripon, Wisconsin,[5] on 11 January 1858,Note 1 one of three boys. Within months of his birth, the family moved to Jackson, Michigan, as his father had acquired the town's general store. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, his father joined the Union Army. He rose to the rank of major, before being honorably discharged. However, he abandoned his family, not returning home after the war ended.[6]
This left his wife Lois to bring up three young boys. Selfridge's two brothers died at a very young age shortly after the war ended, so Harry became his mother's only child. She found work as a schoolteacher and struggled financially to support both of them. She supplemented her low income by painting greeting cards, and eventually became headmistress of Jackson High School. Selfridge and his mother enjoyed each other's company and were good friends; she lived with him and his family until her death in 1924.[7]
Later life and death[edit]
During the years of the Great Depression, Selfridge's fortune rapidly declined and then disappeared—a situation not helped by his free-spending ways. He gambled frequently and often lost. He also spent money on various showgirls.[17]
On 8 May 1947, Selfridge died of bronchial pneumonia at his home in Putney, south-west London, aged 89.[2][26][27] His funeral was held on 12 May at St. Mark's Church in Highcliffe, after which he was buried in St Mark's Churchyard next to his wife and his mother.[28]
Selfridge's children were Chandler, who died shortly after birth; Rosalie, who married Serge de Bolotoff, later Wiasemsky; Violette (who wrote the book Flying gypsies: the chronicle of a 10,000-mile air vagabondage and married first Vicomte Jacques Jean de Sibour and second Frederick T. Bedford); Harry Jr. "Gordon"; and Beatrice.
Selfridge's grandson, Oliver, who died in 2008, became a pioneer in artificial intelligence.[29] His grandson Ralph, who also died in 2008, was a professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of Florida from 1961 to 2002 and was called by many "the grandfather of digital simulation."[30]
Selfridge wrote a book, The Romance of Commerce, published by John Lane—The Bodley Head, in 1918, but actually written several years prior. In it are chapters on ancient commerce, China, Greece, Venice, Lorenzo de' Medici, the Fugger family, the Hanseatic League, fairs, guilds, early British commerce, trade and the Tudors, the East India Company, north England's merchants, the growth of trade, trade and the aristocracy, Hudson's Bay Company, Japan, and representative businesses of the 20th century.
Among the more popular quotations attributed to Selfridge:
Television[edit]
The British period television drama series Mr Selfridge began its first season in 2013, starring Jeremy Piven as Harry Gordon Selfridge.[17]
Secrets of Selfridges, produced by the independent UK company Pioneer Productions in its "Secrets of Britain" series, was an hour-long documentary about the London store and Harry Selfridge.[13]