The Jewel of Knightsbridge

by Harrod, Robin;

  William Kibble was born in 1852 in Camberwell and went to school in Guildford. He is said to have learnt the trade at the Clapham Stores, with owners Walter and Mary Viney, although this has proved difficult to confirm. William went to Covent Garden each day and bought fresh fruit and vegetables. They were the best in the area. He proved to be a great asset.

  William worked in Harrods as a manager for many years, retaining the role of grocery buyer until 1920. He was still working there when the book,Modern Men of Mark, was written, as he is mentioned there, ‘It is interesting to note that some of those working for the firm then [the 1860s] are working for it still. William Kibble, the grocery buyer being one, and under his control grew other departments, patent medicines, perfumery and stationery.’

  William is shown in the 1871 census working as a ‘shopman’ at Brompton Road. Some of the living accommodation had obviously been retained as he was living at the shop with two other young men, also listed as shopmen. Kibble subsequently married and lived in Lewisham, but later moved to Ovington Street, just behind Harrods. They had three children but sadly his wife died a year after the last child was born. The children went to live with William’s unmarried brother and sister in Lewisham, whilst William continued working at Harrods and living close to the shop. He was obviously unstintingly faithful.

  William became close to the family and was known as ‘Uncle Willie’. Having devoted much of his life to Harrods, at the cost of not living with his children for some time, when Harrods was no longer in the family he moved back to Clapham to live with the Vineys.

  An article appeared in the July 1935 edition of the Harrodian Gazette (the in-house staff magazine) describing William Kibble’s early days. Mr Kibble was visited by the writer in Clapham Common, where he then lived aged 83. The article gives a unique insight into the shop of 1868. William was described as ‘the oldest, and one of the most notable of our pensioners’. The article continues:

  Although it is as long as 68 years since he started working with his cousin Charlie Harrod, today Mr Kibble, who was then known as ‘William’, is alert and cheerful; in fact it does not seem possible that he has been living in comfortable retirement for 15 years. Going back to his early days with the Firm, Mr Kibble has some delightful tales to tell. Imagine Harrods being one narrow shop in Brompton Road instead of occupying a whole block as well as 3 other buildings in the vicinity! The shop front was built on to the house where Mrs Harrod lived with her 2 children, and there was a tidy piece of garden but no back door. When William started work, at the early age of 16, the chief trouble was lack of space. There was no room for storage – all the goods had to be delivered at the shop door, even when customers were waiting to be served. The vans belonging to the manufacturers caused such serious traffic blockage that the policemen from Hyde Park Corner would walk up to settle it. By the way, Brompton Road was an extremely busy thoroughfare – one bus passed each way every half hour. Now for the staff. There were four counter men as well as Mr Harrod himself, and one odd job man whose duties were legion. He unpacked the goods, kept the stock, wrapped parcels for customers, cleaned the floor and last but not least, made the deliveries. On a busy day he would have to hire a barrow from a neighbour at the rate of 2d an hour! The men, including William, lived over the shop and had their meals with Mr Harrod. The hours were 8 a.m. till 9 p.m. except for Saturday, which was an extra busy time and the shop stayed open until 11 p.m. Mr Kibble remembers there being trouble one Saturday night, because one by one the men, who had their tea at 5 and worked until 11, left the shop during the evening to get refreshment. The following week, Mr Harrod anticipated them and provided a pint of beer all round at 9 p.m.

  By 1867, Charles Digby had hired the five employees mentioned above to help sell the widening variety of goods featured at the store. In 1868, the store’s payroll jumped to sixteen employees and turnover had risen from about £200 per week to £1,000 per week. The weekly wage bill was £15, including 10s each to two boys in white aprons who delivered goods.

  During the1860s and 1870s Charles Digby must have been a well-known figure in the area. He was great friends with some local men: young Mr Tattersall, of Tattersall’s horse dealers’ fame, who had re-sited their premises close to Harrods; and James Chatten, a general dealer and hansom cab owner. All three were noted for their sartorial elegance and were referred to in an article in the Punch of the times, as ‘the three best-dressed young blades of Knightsbridge’.

  In 1870, the first Harrods catalogue was published – the Harrods Grocery Book. It was a small booklet advertising ‘Best Articles at Co-operative Prices’. Finest Teas were 2s 8d per lb, 5s for 2lb, Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits were 6d per lb and Pears Transparent Soap 9d a ball. Charles Digby was reputedly the first person to import tinned fruit into this country. The catalogue stated, ‘Prices for cash Only’.

  The rate of change in the premises became almost maniacal. In 1872 Charles Digby built over the garden of No. 103. He bought a shop in Queens Gardens to act as a warehouse and then found it was not enough. Around this time, he acquired his first van to allow Harrods to match the delivery service that the Co-op stores already offered. In 1873 he added a two-storey extension at the back, in what had been his garden, and continued to build up its range of goods. This provided additional space for flowers, fruit and vegetables and cooked meats, and importantly a second-floor counting house! Probably in 1874, he acquired the leases to Nos 101 and 103 Brompton Road, adjacent to the east boundary of the shop, from Mr Stewart, a milliner. He faced the whole lot with new plate glass and above this appeared the name of the shop, ‘HARRODS STORES’. This extension allowed perfumery, medicine and stationery departments to be added, and later confectionery, china and flowers.

  Another Harrodian Gazette article, from May 1925, documents life at the shop in 1873. This edition noted the retirement of two faithful employees. One of these was Mr William Ball who left after thirty-four years of interrupted service. In the article he stated:

  I started work for Harrods in 1873. At that time Harrods was a very small shop and I occupied the position of errand boy, having to push a heavy truck about the roads, which in those days were none too smooth. After a time business began to improve and Mr Harrod realised that the work was getting too heavy for the truck boy, and he hired a horse and van. I was then given the job as vanguard; in this job I soon learnt the way to drive a horse. As the business improved, so Mr Harrod hired another van and numbered them 1 and 2. Our first stables were at Walter Robertson’s Yard, Paradise Walk, Queens Road, Chelsea [just north of the Embankment]. My first horse was named ‘Razor’, (a beautiful creature), and he was the start of horse power at the Stores.

  As years went by the number of horses and vans increased and we stabled at our own stable in Turks Row, which is now Sloane Court [just south of Sloane Square], I then had a horse named ‘Kitty’, better known in those days as ‘Mother Ball’.

  The year 1874 was celebrated as the store’s silver jubilee year. To put the date into a historical perspective: this was the year Disraeli came to power and passed eleven major Acts of social reform in the following two years – the Factory Act introduced the reduced fifty-six-hour week; Prince Alfred, son of Queen Victoria, then the Duke of Edinburgh, married Maria Alexandrovna, daughter of the Emperor of Russia; Hardy wrote Far From the Madding Crowd; and Verdi wrote his Requiem.

  Stories of Charles Digby’s business methods abound. He expected the same dedication from his staff as he himself gave. Reputedly, he installed a removable staircase at his employees’ entrance and took it away at 8 a.m. whether everyone had arrived or not. Store employees who arrived later could not get in and lost their pay for the day. He would fine employees who were late at the rate of 1½d per quarter of an hour. This sounds hard-hearted, but he did use the carrot as well as the stick. Contrary to the usual practice, from 1882 he would pay 1s an hour for overtime, and half a sovereign was produced from his long silk purse for employees going on holiday. They wer
e given one week’s holiday after eighteen months’ service.

  Despite his harsh methods, he retained the respect and trust of his staff, and although he displayed an apparently abrupt manner from time to time, his kindness was to be seen on many occasions. It was recorded that once he pulled aside an assistant who was serving a poor woman and said, ‘Let her have anything she needs in reason. Charge my account. Tell her it’s a present.’

  During this period, when Charles and his family were living in Ditton, near Esher, he would leave home at 6 a.m. and arrive at Harrods at 7 a.m. He stipulated that staff should arrive for work with clean faces. His formula for engaging a new assistant was abrupt and direct, something like, ‘Start next Friday – 7.30 a.m. in the grocery – bring clean smock – ditto face – nine shillings per week.’ It was accepted that employment could be terminated at a minute’s notice from either side. It was often said by employees about Mr Harrod, ‘at least you know where you are with him.’

  According to his great-granddaughter, Jean Pitt, every morning he lined up his delivery men and made them sing ‘Lead Kindly Light’ before they set off for the day. Despite the increasing numbers of staff, Miss Conder in her talk points out:

  C.D. Harrod made it his business to know each and the work of each, down to the youngest and humblest worker. In this way he was accorded a loyalty which was to stand him in good stead in the Crisis of the House of Harrod.

  Having started his revolution with selling volume cheaply, as success continued Charles Digby tried to encourage more wealthy people to visit his store and provided a personalised service for important customers. They found him ‘so handsome, so honest and so obliging’ that he soon built up a fine reputation for himself in the neighbourhood. He abolished ‘cook’s perks’, the traditional prerequisite for servants who bought their masters’ provisions at the store. He managed to increase trade by introducing his own-brand groceries, patriotically packaged in the colours of the Union Jack (this may have been copied since!). He attracted custom by delivering all goods free of charge. His decision not to employ barkers to attract custom, preferring to circulate lists of the produce on offer to local houses, led to the production of lists like the 1870 Grocery Book. His merchandising skills would not be out of place today.

  By the late 1870s, the continued success of the business prompted a further move for the family to the leafy suburbs, and by the end of that decade the store boasted more than 100 employees. Considerable rebuilding followed and further departments were added. By 1883 the number of employees had risen to over 150, and there were numerous separate departments. According to the Chelsea Herald, Harrod’s business, ‘which at one time was a purely local one, is now worldwide, and his clients – or customers – rank from the “Peer to the peasant”’.

  On 8 January 1880, Charles Digby used the first full-column advertisement in the Times to publicise the shop and the goods on offer. It consisted of dozens of mini adverts taking up the whole of the last column. Charles Digby was keen on detail. In the June 1923 edition of the Harrodian Gazette, the retirement of a Mr Clancy was recorded after forty-two years of service. He had started working there in 1881. After a presentation, he replied with:

  … much emotion, said how sorry he was to go. Through the generosity of the Company, he was retiring on a very good pension. He spoke of the happy times he had had whilst at the Stores. He said, ‘I entered the business in 1881. In those days, the Stores consisted of Grocery, Provisions, Ironmongery, Turnery, China and Patent Medicines. There was only one entrance, where the Perfumery door is now. The Office lay at the end of the long Grocery shop. Here worked the Governor, one Mail Order Clerk and one Porters’ Cash Clerk. One Country Ledger was kept, one Town and one To Pay Ledger. The Governor kept the Bought Ledger himself. Hours were from 8.30 a.m. to 9 p.m …

  The Country Orders were copied into a quarto sized book with pen. Any Country Orders with addresses of which the Governor was not conversant were made ‘pro forma’ (in those days it was called ‘Label’, because a label was stuck on the bill asking for payment).

  Charles Digby’s dedication to his business was legendary. His youngest daughter Eva told her relatives the story of her father being thwarted in an attempt to get to Harrods one day by the thick fogs which, in those days, often enveloped parts of London. Having failed by cab, he set off walking to the store preceded by footmen with lanterns – he got there.

  In 1883, Harrod bought a large piece of land at the back of the premises and began building again. This was almost completed by Christmas 1883, which promised to be the best Christmas ever. By early December the store was overflowing with merchandise in readiness for the rush.

  Everything that Charles Digby could have wished for was coming to pass. The store was successful; probably more successful than he could have dreamed was possible. It had grown in size and prestige, and the profits had allowed him and his family to live a very comfortable existence in increasingly grand accommodation. It was all going so well. When the family moved out of Brompton Road to make room for expansion, Charles and Caroline’s two daughters were 3 years and 18 months old. They moved initially to a sequence of houses in the London area, and then later into ‘the country’.

  Charles Digby’s family life can be followed by using the births of the other six of their eight children in order to trace the moves to their various residences. Neither the records, nor any information gained from existing family members, have revealed what sort of parents Charles and Caroline proved to be. The impression I have gained is that Charles Digby was a loving father and much respected by the family. During the children’s early lives, at least until Charles Digby retired later in the century, the children can only have caught fleeting glimpses of their father as he built up the business and worked long hours, six days per week. He left home at 6 a.m. and might not be back until 9 p.m., although Sunday would be the family day.

  The Harrod family’s circumstances gradually became more comfortably and Caroline had more help in the form of servants. In this way, the Harrod family probably did not differ much from many affluent middle-class Victorian families. Their first new home was 2 Hill Street, Knightsbridge, and soon after their move in 1868 a further daughter had arrived, who they called Emily Maud. They would have been very pleased to have three healthy daughters, but I suspect Charles Digby might have wondered when his son and successor would be born.

  Hill Street no longer exists, having changed its name to Trevor Place in 1936. It was just south of Knightsbridge and Kensington Road, opposite the west end of Hyde Park Barracks and north of Brompton Road. The house would have been about 200 yards away from Harrods, so a short walk to work for the man who had so recently lived above the shop and liked to start early. It was part of a terrace of brick houses, four or five storeys high. A photograph from 1993 found on British History Online shows the east side of Hill Street, or Trevor Place, and No. 2 can be identified. The house is three windows wide with a much lower building on the north, which was originally the stables, and a row of slightly lower terraced houses to the south. It was a grand town house for the family

  In 1870, whilst still living at Hill Street, Charles and Caroline’s next child was born. At last it was a boy. They named the son and heir Henry Herbert. Hence, in the 1871 census the household consisted of the four children and their parents. There were also three servants, comprising a cook, a housemaid and one general domestic servant. There are a few photographs of Caroline and the children, one showing the four children including a baby Henry Herbert. It was probably taken for Henry’s christening in December 1870. There are no known photographs of Charles Digby with his wife or children. He may have been camera shy, or just too busy.

  Charles Digby, by now 30 years of age, must have been relieved to have a boy, hopefully his successor for the business. Perhaps this relief slowed down the reproductive drive for a while – having had four children in almost six years, there followed a gap of four and a half years with no children. The fami
ly lived in Hill Street between 1868 and 1874, although an 1876 directory still lists Charles Digby there, and an electoral register list his name there in 1885. It is likely, then, that he retained the house or the lease after the family had moved out, and continued to use it as a pied-à-terre.

  By the time of the birth of their fifth child in March 1875, the Harrod family had moved again, this time ‘out of town’ to Esher. It was another girl, their fourth, and they called her Amy Caroline. Amy’s birth certificate actually gives the address as Ditton Marsh, Thames Ditton, but this is just on the eastern border of the parish of Esher, very much in the countryside. Although now not within walking distance of his shop, Esher was probably a very convenient place to live, as it was both on a main road and had a railway station with a good service.

  The family only remained in the Esher area for a year or two, and by 1877 they were in Sydenham, which became the family home for the next fourteen years. Their new house, Armitage Lodge, in Wells Road, Sydenham was one of two detached houses (the other, The Woodlands, was also called Claverhouse) built in Wells Road in the early 1850s for Edward Saxton, a local solicitor. They were of high specification and ‘state of the art’ for the era. Though I tried to take a look, I found that the house was demolished some years ago. With the aid of the local studies librarian in Lewisham, the site was found at the Sydenham Hill end of the road, which is now called Wells Park Road.

  Sydenham Hill itself was above and behind the house, which had superb views across the countryside southwards. The road winds down round the north side of the hill to become Wells Road as it descends on the other side. Less than a mile to the south, the family would have been able to see the famous Crystal Palace, which was moved there from its original site in Hyde Park. It was built originally for the Great Exhibition in 1851, when Charles Digby would have been 10 years old, and it is likely he would have been taken there with his brothers whilst they were living in Brompton; he might now have taken his own children to the Crystal Palace site.