WH Smith

Formation

In 1792, Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna established the business as a news vendor in Little Grosvenor Street, London. After their deaths, the business — valued in 1812 at £1,280 — was taken over by their youngest son William Henry Smith, and in 1846 the firm became W. H. Smith & Son when his only son, also named William Henry, became a partner. The firm took advantage of the railway boom by opening news-stands on railway stations, beginning with Euston in 1848. In 1850, the firm opened depots in Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. It also ran a circulating library service, from 1860 to 1961, and a publishing business based at the Steam Press, Cirencester. The younger W. H. Smith used the success of the firm as a springboard into politics, becoming a Member of Parliament in 1868 and serving as a minister in several Conservative governments.After the death of W. H. Smith the younger in 1891, his widow was created Viscountess Hambleden in her own right; their son inherited the business from his father and the viscountcy from his mother. After the death of the second Viscount in 1928, the business was reconstituted as a limited company, in which his son, the third Viscount, owned all the ordinary shares. On the death of the third Viscount in 1948, the death duties were so large that a public holding company had to be formed and shares sold to WH Smith staff and the public. A younger brother of the third Viscount remained chairman until 1972, but the Smith family's control slipped away, and the last family member left the board in 1996.

In 1966, WHSmith originated a nine-digit code for uniquely referencing books, called Standard Book Numbering or SBN. It was adopted as international standard ISO 2108 in 1970, and was used until 1974, when it became the ISBN scheme.

Expansion

From the 1970s, WHSmith began to expand into other retail sectors. WH Smith Travel operated from 1973 to 1991. The Do It All chain of DIY shops originated with an acquisition in 1979, becoming a joint venture with Boots in 1990; Boots acquired WHSmith's share in June 1996. The bookshop chain Waterstone's, founded by former WHSmith executive Tim Waterstone in 1982, was bought in 1989 and sold in 1998.The expanding WHSmith group adopted a new "house style" or corporate identity in 1973, with a new logo and a change of name from W. H. Smith & Son to WHSmith. The new hexagon-shaped logo featured the initials of the group on the sides of a box employing a new orange and brown colour scheme, replacing a logo that had been in use since before 1830. This updated visual identity extended throughout the company's operations, specified by a design manual, covering everything from the appropriate use of the logo in retail environments, through the design of decorative elements on wrapping paper and promotional material, the layout of stationery, labels and forms, and even crockery, also informing the design of staff uniforms and packaging.In 1986, WHSmith bought a 75% controlling share of the Our Price music retail chain; in the 1990s it also bought other music retailers including the Virgin Group's smaller shops. The 75% share of Virgin Our Price was sold to Virgin Retail Group Ltd in July 1998 for £145m. WHSmith also owned the American record chain The Wall, which was sold to Camelot Music in 1998.In March 1998, the company acquired John Menzies' retail outlets for £68m, which for many years had been the main rival to the company's railway-station outlets. This purchase also cleared the way for WHSmith's retail expansion into Scotland. Prior to the takeover, Menzies' larger Scottish shops dominated the market, and the latter's presence was minimal.

Restructuring

For several years, the company's retail arm had difficulties competing with specialist book and music chains on one side and large supermarkets on the other. This led to poor financial performance, and a takeover bid in 2004 by Permira, which fell through. The company reacted to this by disposing of its overseas subsidiaries and its publishing business Hodder Headline, in order to concentrate on reforming its core businesses.In August 2006, the company demerged the retail and news distribution arms of the business into two separate companies: WH Smith plc and Smiths News plc . In September 2010 WHSmith bought The Gadget Shop from The Entertainer. That year, it also bought online greeting card retailer Funky Pigeon.

Since 2011

In April 2011, WHSmith agreed a deal with the legal services provider QualitySolicitors under which QualitySolicitors would place representatives in up to 500 of its UK branches. Past Times went into administration in January 2012, and the brand name was bought by WHSmith in March 2013.In October 2013, WHSmith announced that it had bought the ModelZone brand and would sell products under this brand through existing WHSmith shops. In October 2014, WHSmith announced as part of its preliminary statement that it was planning on extending its greetings card offering by launching the low-price brand Cardmarket on a trial basis. According to the statement, these trial shops would be in low rent areas and let to WHSmith under short-term leases. The company announced in late 2018 that the trial of Cardmarket would be wound up, with the closure of the Cardmarket stores. This was in addition to the announcement of the closure for at least six WHSmith stores which were deemed economically unviable following a strategic business review.Late in 2017, the company purchased Cult Pens, a UK-based online retailer of specialist pens, for an undisclosed amount.In 2018, WHSmith acquired the brand InMotion, the largest airport-based electronics retailer in the USA. InMotion expanded to operate stores within UK airports including Heathrow, Manchester and Birmingham, as well as internationally in Spain and Australia.In July 2020, WHSmith announced more than 150 redundancies at its head office, representing approximately 18% of the head office workforce. In November 2020, the company announced that, after a loss of £280 million, it had decided to close 25 stores in the country, noting that eight stores had been closed in 2019.In August 2020, WHSmith launched a new flagship store in Terminal 2 at Heathrow Airport, in collaboration with Well, which features an in-house pharmacy.