page_title: Debenhams
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Debenhams / History / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of Crypt Chambers, Eastgate Street, Chester, Cheshire, EnglandThis is a photo of listed building number 1376232.
context_page_description: Debenhams is a British multinational retailer operating department stores in the United Kingdom and Denmark, with franchise stores in other countries. The company was founded in the eighteenth century as a single store in London and has now grown to 178 locations across those countries. It sells a range of clothing, household items, and furniture.
  Headquartered in Regent's Place in the London Borough of Camden, the company owns the Danish department store chain, Magasin du Nord.
  On 9 April 2020, Debenhams entered administration again, exactly one year after having entered administration previously.
context_section_description: The business was incorporated as Debenhams Limited in 1905. A new headquarters building, which was designed by William Wallace and James Glen Sivewright Gibson and built by Trollope & Colls, was completed in Wigmore Street in 1908. The modern Debenhams group grew from the acquisition of department stores in towns and cities throughout the UK, under the leadership of its chairman, Ernest Debenham. The first of these purchases, Marshall & Snelgrove at Oxford Street in London, was acquired through a one sided merger in 1919.  Later purchases included Harvey Nichols in London's Knightsbridge in 1920. Most of the acquired stores retained their former identities until a unified corporate image was rolled out. The company was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1928, shortly after it had purchased fellow retail group Drapery Trust.
  In 1976 the company acquired Browns of Chester. It remains the only one of the company's UK stores to have retained an individual identity. The business diversified during the 1970s buying South East based supermarket group Cater Brothers in 1972, after the death of its chairman Leslie Cater. Using the new purchasing power Debenhams modernised its 40 food halls within its stores, branding them Cater's Food Halls, and opened two new Cater superstores. However the business declined in the intense marketplace and in 1979 the chain was sold to Allied Suppliers who converted the Cater stores into their Presto format.
  Debenhams was targeted three times during the 1980s by the Animal Liberation Front in protest at the sale of animal furs in stores. Stores in Romford, Luton, and Harrow were fire-bombed by members, the worst attack being on the Luton store. As a result, the company stopped selling clothes with animal furs. It was alleged by Caroline Lucas MP in a debate in Westminster Hall that Bob Lambert, a then undercover police officer, planted the fire bomb that caused £340,000 worth of damage to the Harrow branch of Debenhams in 1987. It is unclear if anything has come of these allegations as of March 2014.
  In 1985 the company was acquired by the Burton Group. Following the closure of the store in Dudley in January 1981 and the Birmingham store in 1983, the company's only store in the West Midlands for the next six years was a town centre store in Walsall. On 4 November 1989, it opened a store at the Merry Hill Shopping Centre in Brierley Hill. Debenhams demerged from the Burton Group in January 1998 and was once again listed as a separate company on the London Stock Exchange. It expanded under the leadership of Belinda Earl who was appointed CEO in 2000.
caption: Crypt Chambers in Chester houses part of the Browns of Chester store and is a Grade I listed building.
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