 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Retail Bookselling Wholesale |
| Founded | 1879; 146 years ago (1879) |
| Founder | Benjamin Henry Blackwell |
| Headquarters | , England, UK |
Number of locations | 18 stores (2022)[1] |
Area served | UK |
| Products | Books,Maps |
| Revenue |  £58.27 million (2019)[2] |
Number of employees | 1,000 (in 2011)[3] |
| Parent | Waterstones |
| Website | www.Blackwells.co.uk |
Blackwell UK, also known asBlackwell's andBlackwell Group, is a Britishacademicbook retailer and library supply service owned byWaterstones. It was founded in 1879 byBenjamin Henry Blackwell,[4] after whom the chain is named, onBroad Street, Oxford. The brand now has a chain of 18 shops, and an accounts and library supply service. It employs around 1000 staff in its divisions.[1][3]
The Broad Street branches, which include speciality music andart/poster shops, remained the only ones until expansion in the early 1990s, when at peak after taking overHeffers inCambridge in 1999[5] andJames Thin in Scotland in 2002,[6] the company had more than 70 outlets.[6] Its library supply chain serves an international market, but parts were sold off in 2009, with theNorth American arm ofBlackwell Book Services and the Australian business James Bennett sold toBaker & Taylor for their academic arm YBP Library Services.[7] The group were also publishers, under the Blackwell publishing imprint, which published more than 800 journals when it was sold toJohn Wiley & Sons in 2007 for £572 million to formWiley-Blackwell.[8]
The Blackwell family ran the company until 2022, with anownership divided between voting shares owned by the family and wealth shares owned by family and others.[9] There was a public dispute in 2002 between Julian "Toby" Blackwell, the current owner of the group, and Nigel Blackwell, the former chairman of the publishing arm, about the possible sale of the publishing business. This led to an offer of £300 million fromTaylor & Francis[10] and to an eventual deal with John Wiley & Son in 2006, as a result of which Nigel Blackwell and Toby's son Philip Blackwell left the business,[11] leaving Toby Blackwell the sole family member still involved in running the company. Other family voting shares were held by atrust, which Toby's shares would transfer on his death, eventually bringing an end to the Blackwell family involvement with the company.[12] Toby Blackwell announced in 2009 that the wealth shares would be distributed between staff, transforming the company into anemployee-partnership, similar to that of retailerJohn Lewis, when the company returned to profitability having spent several years experiencing losses.[9][13] The company reported it was expecting to return to profit in 2012.[9][needs update]
In February 2022, the UK book chainWaterstones, itself under the umbrella ofElliott Management Corporation, bought Blackwell's.
The company was founded in 1879 byBenjamin Henry Blackwell, son of the first city librarian, who having finished his education at 13, was apprenticed to a local bookseller for ashilling a week. His father, Benjamin Harris Blackwell, had been heavily involved in theTemperance Society. The society promoted, as well as religion, self-education and also encouraged reading. The society provided separate rooms for non-alcoholic refreshment and silent reading. A religious family, the Blackwells had also become involved with the Temperance Society due to Benjamin's father beingteetotal, and as a protest against the government making money from theexcise duty on alcohol.[4]
The flagship shop at 48–51Broad Street, Oxford, was originally only twelve feet square but quickly grew to incorporate the upstairs, cellar and neighbouring shops. Benjamin Henry Blackwell was well respected in Oxford and was elected the firstLiberal councillor for Oxford North.
Basil Blackwell, Benjamin Henry's son, became the first Blackwell to go to university; he was awarded a scholarship atOxford University'sMerton College. He was expected to join the family firm, however, which he did in 1913, after a spell as an apprentice publisher in London. He was tasked with expanding his father's publishing business.
The first Blackwell publication,Mensæ Secundæ: verses written inBalliol College byHenry Beeching, was printed in 1897. Blackwell's began the careers of many writers:J. R. R. Tolkien's first poem, "Goblin Feet", was published in 1915.[4] To promote universal access to literature, Blackwell's pioneered a series of cheaper books, from a one-volumeShakespeare to "3-and-6 novels". The publishing company was merged into the main company in 1921, and a scientific section was added in 1939.
When Benjamin Henry died in 1924, Basil Blackwell took over from his father, and went on to head the company for decades. Basil Blackwell wanted to preserve fine printing. After rescuing the Shakespeare Head Press, he commissionedbelles-lettres, including well-known classics such as thePilgrim's Progress, the works of theBrontës and a complete version ofChaucer'sCanterbury Tales.
In 1966, the Norrington Room was opened, named afterSir Arthur Norrington, the President ofTrinity College and extending under part of Trinity College. It boasts three miles (5 km) of shelving and at 10,000 square feet (930 m2) merited an entry in theGuinness Book of Records as the largest single room selling books.[14]
The company has followed a determined policy since the 1990s to spread out from its established Oxford base and take on a much broader UK presence.
In 1995, Blackwell's became the first bookshop in the UK to allow its customers to purchase online from a catalogue of over 150,000 titles, and opened a flagship shop in London the same year, at 100Charing Cross Road, which is now one of the company's six most prominent shops.[4] Blackwell's took over the Heffers bookshops inCambridge in 1999, and in 2002 acquired the academic bookshops ofJames Thin in Scotland.
Both the Oxford and London flagship shops have won Bookseller of the Year at theBritish Book Awards.[4]
On 29 October 2012,[15] Blackwell's was – withFoyles,John Lewis department stores,Waitrose,Sainsbury's andArgos – among the retailers to launch theNooke-reader – and, from November, theNook HD andNook HD+ tablet computers.[16]
The company remained in the hands of the Blackwell family until February 2022 when it was acquired byWaterstones.[17]
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