History
J&B’s
The first J&B’s store opened in Dewsbury in 1904 and was located on the corner of Market Place and Foundry Street, the first of two locations in the town centre to be known as ‘Busy Corner’. The shop was founded by a Mr and Mrs James Johnson. The Johnsons brought a partner by the name of Mr N. Balmford into the firm, and so the business became Johnson & Balmford – J&B’s.
The first shop was based in the building previously occupied by the C. W. Bunning store. The shop was remodelled in 1908, when most of the walls were removed, a new staircase was added, and new windows were put in.
Although J&B’s expanded to various locations across the town over the following years, including taking occupancy of No.23 Market Place at the southern end of The Arcade, in 1926 the business finally found a permanent home in the four-storey building on the corner of Foundry Street and Corporation Street, at a location which also became known as Busy Corner.
The owners had spent a fortune on the new J&B’s, which they equipped with every available modern feature, including an electric lift to all floors. The move to the new location provided an opportunity to expand and extend the shop, which the owners gladly took, despite the high costs.
The opening of the new J&B’s was a major event, at which tea and biscuits were served free of charge. A full-page advertisement in the Dewsbury Reporter promoted the sale of a wide range of items: coats, costumes, drapery, dresses, silks, men’s wear, millinery, neckwear, hosiery, gloves, corsets, blouses, robes, underwear, furs, umbrellas, and toys. Customers could also enjoy the delights of the new café. Conveniently, the store could be accessed through a doorway inside The Arcade.
Dewsbury’s famous department store really did sell almost everything, and being true to the name, had lots of separate departments selling different kinds of products, e.g., household goods, haberdashery, dress goods, lace, and children’s wear.
J&B’s was a store which believed in advertising and always had the biggest and most prominent adverts in the Dewsbury Reporter, sometimes covering whole pages. It was also widely advertised on many of the town’s trams in the early days.
Its slogan was, ‘If you need it, J&B’s can supply it’, and it certainly lived up to this. Another much-used motto was ‘Value for money with the utmost of courtesy’.
Another motto was, ‘Bargains for the Multitude!’ although J&B’s was one store which didn’t offer credit. In one advertisement it asked potential customers, ‘If you have only so much to spend, make sure you are careful that you spend it to the best advantage’. The advert went on: ‘We undertake to save you many a penny in rigging out yourself and your little folks if you rig them out at our stores and be honestly dealt with in every way. Cash mind, no credit whatever, but if you haven’t the money at the time, and you see something you like, J&B’s will put it aside for you if you – fasten it.’
It sold all the latest fashions, even in smaller items like gloves, and it was proud to declare that its kid gloves were made to ‘fit not split’, and if they did split, customers were asked to take them back so that the manager could ‘see what he could do’. Its kid gloves were lined in silk and sold for 2/6d a pair. It also sold much less expensive gloves ‘for shopping in’, priced 2d. But its most famous gloves were called Edna and Alarm gloves, which were made of beautiful suede fabrics with gold and silver dome fasteners.
Many people of a certain generation will remember J&B’s with great joy, recalling how as children, three or four weeks before Christmas Day, they would queue outside the shop in their hundreds to see Santa Claus arriving on his sleigh. Upon arrival, Santa would climb a ladder to a first-floor window, specially removed for the occasion, and take up residency in his grotto for the festive period. Many recall Santa almost falling off the ladder on a couple of occasions!
J&B’s was at the height of its powers before the Second World War, although the fondest memories of the shop are of the 1950s, a period of economic expansion in the town. Eventually, though, the business succumbed to pressures from local competitors, the ever-growing trend towards catalogue shopping and the mass overseas production of cheaper alternatives to their products, eventually closing their doors after generations of service to the town.