1. William Whiteley was an English entrepreneur of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
11 Facts About William Whiteley
1. 2.
William Whiteley was the founder of the William Whiteley Limited retail company whose eponymous department store became the Whiteleys shopping centre.
3.
William Whiteley's father was a prosperous corn dealer, who had little interest in rearing his son, leaving William to be raised by an uncle.
4.
William Whiteley left school at the age of 14, and started work at his uncle's farm.
5.
William Whiteley would have liked to have been a veterinary surgeon or perhaps a jockey but his family had other ideas.
6.
William Whiteley had the idea that he could create a store as grand as the Crystal Palace where all these goods could be under one roof and it would make him the most important shopkeeper in the world.
7.
William Whiteley made a consistent practice of marking all goods in plain figures and of making his shop window attractive, and was satisfied with small profits.
8.
William Whiteley began buying more shops in Westbourne Grove, and by 1875 he owned an unbroken row of shopfronts.
9.
William Whiteley then began to develop more of a mass market appeal.
10.
William Whiteley procured a second-hand coffin and a pint of fleas.
11.
William Whiteley's attorneys claimed that the person Cecil William Whiteley had never existed and were unsure of a motive behind the confrontation.