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Marks and Spencer are one of the UK's top department stores with a substantial range of products available online. All M and S clothing and home products are available through the website, as well as some online exclusive products, totalling over 20,000 items. PleaseRemainSeated.com is a Marks and Spencer associate and earns a commission on sales.

Go to Marks and Spencer Personalised Home Page and Search Box

Marks and Spencer plc (also known as M&S) is a major British multinational retailer headquartered in the City of Westminster, London. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

It specialises in the selling of clothing, home products and luxury food products. M&S was founded in 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in Leeds.[3] The company also began to sell branded goods like Kellogg's Corn Flakes in November 2008.

In 1998, the company became the first British retailer to make a pre-tax profit of over £1 billion, although subsequently it went into a sudden slump, which took the company, its shareholders, who included hundreds of thousands of small investors, and nearly all retail analysts and business journalists, by surprise. In November 2009, it was announced that Marc Bolland, formerly of Morrisons,[6] would take over as chief executive from executive chairman Stuart Rose in early 2010; Rose remained in the role of non-executive chairman until he was replaced by Robert Swannell in January 2011.

M&S have 852 stores throughout the UK, as well as many international stores; 52 stores in India, 48 stores in Turkey, 37 in Russia, 27 in Greece, 17 in Ireland, 14 in France, 11 in Poland, 6 in Hungary and Finland and 5 in Spain.

In recent years its clothing sales have fallen whilst food sales have increased after the axing of "St. Michael's" naming for their own brand.

Establishment Marks and Spencer on Briggate not far from their original branch in Leeds.

The company was founded by a partnership between Michael Marks, a Polish Jew from Słonim (Marks was born into a Polish-Jewish family, a Polish refugee living in the Russian Empire, now in Belarus), and Thomas Spencer, a cashier from the English market town of Skipton in North Yorkshire. On his arrival in England, Marks worked for a company in Leeds, called Barran, which employed refugees (see Sir John Barran, 1st Baronet). In 1884 he met Isaac Jowitt Dewhirst while looking for work. Dewhirst lent Marks £5 which he used to establish his Penny Bazaar on Kirkgate Market, in Leeds.Dewhirst also taught him a little English. Dewhirst's cashier was Tom Spencer, a bookkeeper, whose second wife, Agnes, helped improve Marks' English. In 1894, when Marks acquired a permanent stall in Leeds' covered market, he invited Spencer to become his partner.

In 1901 Marks moved to the Birkenhead open market where he amalgamated with Spencer. The pair were allocated stall numbers 11 & 12 in the centre aisle in 1903, and there they opened the famous Penny Bazaar. The company left Birkenhead Market on 24 February 1923.

The next few years saw Michael Marks and Tom Spencer open market stalls in many locations around the North West of England and move the original Leeds Penny Bazaar to 20, Cheetham Hill Road, Manchester.

 

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