# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Whiteley, William

​WHITELEY, WILLIAM (1831–1907), ‘universal provider,’ a younger son of William Whiteley, a corn factor in a small way of business at Agbrigg near Wakefield, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Rowland, was born at Agbrigg on 29 Sept. 1831, and spent several years with his brothers on his uncle's farm near Wakefield. In June 1848, however, he was apprenticed as a draper's assistant to Messrs. Harnew and Glover, of Wakefield, and in 1851 he paid a visit to the Great Exhibition in London. The idea of London as the centre of the world's commerce stimulated him in a remarkable manner, and in 1852 he obtained a position in The Fore Street Warehouse Company, in the City of London. His capital then was 10l.; in ten years he had amassed 700l., and with its aid he opened a small shop with two female assistants as a fancy draper at 31 Westbourne Grove (11 March 1863). His ideas were laughed at as extravagant and his choice of a site ridiculed. Westbourne Grove was then known in the drapery trade as ‘Bankruptcy Row.’ But the attention he paid to window dressing, to marking in plain figures, and to dealing with orders by post soon distinguished his business from its competitors. In 1870 and succeeding years he accumulated shops side by side; in 1876 he had fifteen shops and two thousand employees. At the time of his death he had twenty-one shops, fourteen in Westbourne Grove (which he had adapted from pre-existing buildings), and seven of spacious dimensions in the adjoining Queen's Road which were wholly new erections. Meanwhile six serious fires which gutted the premises on each occasion threatened the progress of the business. On 17 Nov. 1882 some thirteen shops, 43–55 Westbourne Grove, were burned down, of an estimated value of 100,000l.; on 26 Dec. 1882 some stabling and outhouses valued at 20,000l. were destroyed; on 26 April 1884 the new premises suffered to the extent of 150,000l.; on 17 June 1885 four large shops valued at 100,000l. were ruined, and on 6–9 Aug. 1887 damage was done to the extent of 500,000l.; three lives were lost. The hand of an incendiary was suspected, and on the last occasion a reward of 3000l. was offered for discovery of the criminal. But ‘Whiteley's’ rose each time more splendid from the flames.
The field of operations had been gradually extended; in 1866 the owner added general to fancy drapery, and within ten years he undertook to provide every kind of goods, including food, drink, and furniture. He adopted the insignia of the two hemispheres and the style of ‘universal provider.’ Stories were widely current of Whiteley supplying a white elephant and a second-hand (or misfit) coffin. He set the example of professing to sell any commodity that was procurable. Whiteley's method of taking and dismissing assistants without references was peculiar, but in other respects his mode of organisation was soon adopted or paralleled by many other firms in London and the provinces. Whiteley's success was effected without sensational cutting of prices or extravagant disbursement in advertising. In 1899 the turnover exceeded a million sterling and the business was converted into a limited company (2 June); but the bulk of the shares was held in the family, and it was not until 1909 that the shares were publicly subscribed. The share capital amounted to 900,000l. with four-per-cent. first mortgage irredeemable debenture stock of 900,000l. Whiteley continued to live unpretentiously in close proximity to his business at 31 Porchester Terrace. Every day to the last he was in the shop. There on 24 Jan. 1907 he was visited by Horace George Rayner, a young man who falsely claimed to be an illegitimate son. Whiteley treated him as a blackmailer, and was about to summon a constable when Rayner shot him dead. Whiteley was buried with an imposing ceremonial at Kensal Green on 30 Jan. 1907. His assailant, who tried and failed to commit suicide, was sentenced to death at the Central Criminal Court on 22 March 1907, but the home secretary (Mr. Herbert Gladstone), yielding to public opinion, which detected extenuating circumstances in the crime, commuted the sentence to imprisonment for life.
By his wife Harriet Sarah Hill, who survived him, Whiteley left two sons, William and Frank, and two daughters, Ada and Clara. His estate was valued at 1,452,829l. Apart from a generous ​provision for his family by a will dated 20 May 1904, he left a million pounds in the hands of trustees to be devoted to the construction and maintenance of Whiteley Homes for the Aged Poor. For this purpose a garden city of over 200 acres, Whiteley Park, Burr Hill, Surrey, is in course of construction. The business was considerably enlarged by his sons in 1909–1910, and an immense building in the Queen's Road, costing over 250,000l. and covering nearly twenty acres, was opened in Oct. 1911.
A portrait in oils by Haymes Williams (1889) and a bust by Adams-Acton belong to his sons.
[Biograph, 1881, p. 421; The Times, Jan., Feb., March 1907, passim; Annual Reg. 1907; Whiteley's Diary and Almanac, 1877 and successive years; private information.]
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