Brown's Department Store: a potted history.

Until 1976, Debenhams on Eastgate Street was 'Browns' a family-run department store.  For three generations, starting in 1819, it was run by a series of brothers all of whom contributed a huge amount to the city.  But the business was started single-handedly by Susannah Brown (née Towsey), a draper and haberdasher who, in 1791,  moved from her previous premises near the Cross to more commodious premises on Eastgate Street.

Entrance to Browns along Eastgate Street

Susannah seems to have been an impressive person.  To restock her shop she would have to make an arduous six-day journey to London to buy hats, haberdashery, and gloves, which she would then advertise in the local paper.  As well as being the mother of three sons, she quietly expanded her business, so that when she died in 1819, it included baby and funeral wear.  Susannah's building was above the 'Honey Steps' - the place where honey was sold as part of the thirteenth century Corn Market.   Her son William, joined later by his brother Henry, expanded the shop and replaced the Honey Steps with a shop in the neoclassical style.

By now the shop was being compared with shops in Regent Street, and the brothers - both Whigs and both mayors at one time or another - made great contributions to public life in the city.  It was thanks to them, for instance, that Chester became a centre for rail travel.

The brothers died within months of each other by 1853 and, since neither were married,  they were succeeded by their nephews William and Charles.  They continued the family tradition of improving the city: in particular the Rows, the Groves walkway and the Flookers Brook garden area
in Hoole.  They also expanded the shop, building in both the Gothic (Crypt Building)

The Gothic Building (seen from Eastgate Street Row North)

and half-timbered style (at first leased to Bollands', confectioners to royalty).

Bollands' Building from St Werburgh Street

This was the time of a 'live-in' glamorous staff in black uniform selected from London and Paris, and when titled shoppers would arrive in carriages with footmen, who would transport their wrapped purchases on a velvet cushion.

In 1900, it was the turn of brothers Francis and then Harry to take the reins.  In this Edwardian era, the shop was again extended and improved with the arcade (still visible on the first floor), a dance floor, a restaurant and a roof garden.

Eastgate Row South.

To the disgust of some, shoppers were encouraged to come in and browse - as well as entertained by mannequin displays, lectures and shows - and even 'people from the back streets' were included.  The public works continued: before Harry Brown died in 1936, he and his wife Phyllis gave the Meadows to the people of Chester, and in 1938 Phyllis, Susannah's great granddaughter-in-law, became Chester's first female mayor.  A fitting way, perhaps, to end this short account of one of Chester's great family dynasties.