Harry Gordon Selfridge

Selfridge, detail of an oil paintingCourtesy of Selfridges Ltd., London

Harry Gordon Selfridge,  (born Jan. 11, 1858Ripon, Wis., U.S.—died May 8, 1947London, Eng.), founder of Selfridges department store in London.

The son of a small storekeeper in Wisconsin, Selfridge at age 21 joined the wholesale-retail firm of Field, Leiter and Company (later Marshall Field and Company) in Chicago, where he worked for 25 years and became a junior partner. In 1906 he went to England with a fortune and began to build a large department store in Oxford Street, London. When his partner withdrew, Selfridge obtained support from a wealthy tea broker, and in 1908 Selfridge and Company, Ltd., was registered (with £900,000 capital) to complete the project. The store opened in 1909 with a floor area of 42,000 square feet, which later was doubled.

Imaginative advertising, ingenious publicity, and novel interior arrangements immediately made Selfridges a household word, and in 1937 its owner became a British citizen. By 1939, however, he had lost his touch as a businessman, and because of his personal extravagance the banks caused him to be replaced.