Derry & Toms
| Private/ceased trading 1971 | |
| Industry | Retail |
| Genre | Department Store |
| Founded | 1860 |
| Founder | Joseph Toms, Charles Derry |
| Headquarters | Kensington High Street, London, England |
Derry & Toms was a London department store.
In 1853 Joseph Toms opened a small drapery shop on Kensington High Street. In 1862 Joseph Toms joined forces with his brother-in-law, Charles Derry to set up Derry & Toms.[1] By 1870 the business had grown to incorporate seven of the surrounding stores, with one of the buildings being used as a mourning department. The company prided itself as being the supplier of goods to the upper class of Kensington.
In 1920 John Barker & Co., the department store next door, acquired Derry & Toms. The firm already owned Pontings, which was adjacent to Derry & Toms on the other side.[1] In 1919 Derry & Toms employed the services of poster artist F Gregory Brown to produce advertising. His advert The Daintiest of Legwear at Derry & Toms sold for £6,240 at Bonhams in 2007.[2]
In 1930 building work was started and the new, seven-storey building on Kensington High Street opened in 1933. The building was designed by Bernard George in an Art Deco style popular at the time, and featured metalwork by Walter Gilbert and panel reliefs, entitled Labour & Technology, by Charles Henry Mabey Jnr. The building is most famous for its Kensington Roof Gardens, which opened in 1938 and still exists today. The garden was designed by landscape architect Ralph Hancock after the Managing Director of Barkers, Trevor Bowen, visited Rockefeller Center in New York. The main restaurant, situated on the fifth floor, was called "The Rainbow Room" and became a venue for thousands of "Dinner & Dances" (banquets), for both private firms and government departments. In 1957 John Barker & Co was bought by House of Fraser, bringing Derry & Toms under their stewardship.
The store was sold in 1971 to Biba.[3] Derry & Toms continued to operate until 1973, when it finally closed. It was replaced in 1974 by Big Biba, which itself closed in 1975. British Land developed the site into offices and shops. The location is now used by Marks and Spencers, H&M, and Gap, and as offices for Sony Music UK. Since 1978 the roof garden has been listed as Grade II, and since 1981 the building has been a Grade II* Listed Building.[4]
References
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Derry & Toms. |
- London's Lost Department Store
- Detailed history of Roof Gardens
- Detailed history of store construction
- Antique posters of the store
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- Use dmy dates from August 2015
- Use British English from August 2015
- Pages using infobox company with unsupported parameters
- Pages with broken file links
- Commons category link is defined as the pagename
- Art Deco architecture in London
- Defunct department stores of the United Kingdom
- Defunct retail companies of the United Kingdom
- Shops in London
- House of Fraser
- Grade II* listed buildings in Kensington and Chelsea
- Department store buildings in the United Kingdom
- Kensington
- Companies established in 1862
- 1862 establishments in England
- Companies disestablished in 1973
- 1973 disestablishments in England
