50°49′20″N 0°08′22″W / 50.8222425°N 0.1395229°W / 50.8222425; -0.1395229

Hanningtons was a department store located in the English coastal city of Brighton and Hove. Prominently situated in a central position in Brighton, it had an unbroken history of trading for nearly 200 years until its closure in 2001. It was the city's oldest, largest and most diverse department store: its 70 departments offered clothes and household goods of all types, and services ranging from funeral arrangement to carpet-cleaning. "Famous" and "prestigious", it was known locally as the "Harrods of Brighton". It remained in family ownership until the 1960s, and subsequent owners ran the business according to the principles of the Hannington family.

Hanningtons grew from a single shop on the town's North Street into a large store spanning numerous shop units on that road and neighbouring streets. Some services were housed in other buildings elsewhere in Brighton and Hove. Regular expansion meant many changes to the main building, but its overall architectural style dates from the 1860s when architect William Russell unified the shop units owned by Hanningtons at that time into a common style. Part of the former store—the section at numbers 41 and 42 East Street, acquired in 1882—is listed at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.

The Hannington name has a long history in the Brighton, Hove and Shoreham-by-Sea area. Thomas Hannington of Southwick was recorded in the Portslade Manor Court Book of 1706; a John Hannington was living in Portslade in 1719; and his father (also John) was buried at St Nicolas Church, Portslade in 1739. Later in the 18th century, Charles Hannington of Shoreham-by-Sea, "known as a man of superhuman strength", married Mary Mepham and had three sons. Charles Mepham Hannington was born in 1774 and qualified as a solicitor; Henry Hannington died in 1781 aged five; and Smith Hannington (born in 1784) became a draper's apprentice in Brighton in about 1798. He worked long hours and quickly learnt about the drapery business.

North Street runs westwards from Old Steine, Brighton's original fashionable centre, and forms the northern boundary of the old town. It has been the commercial heart of Brighton since the 18th century. At that time, its eastern end (which widened to form Castle Square) was home to popular inns and served as the terminus for coaches from London. At number 3 North Street, next to the main coach office, stood a small shop unit measuring 30 by 12 feet (9.1 m × 3.7 m); a contemporary illustration showed it to be a squat two-storey building with large bay windows. Smith Hannington acquired it in 1808, but the circumstances are uncertain: he either bought it from a debt-ridden business associate, or already part-owned it and gained the whole share when the co-owner died. The shop was operated as a drapery business in 1802 by the Constable brothers, who were notorious in Brighton for claiming to be able to fly from one end of Ireland's Pleasure Gardens to the other, and James Ireland himself (who had various business interests as well as his Gardens) was apparently involved as well from 1806.

Hannington opened a drapery shop under his own name at 3 North Street on 25 July 1808. He advertised his "new and elegant Assortment of Goods ... at unusual Low Prices" in the Brighton Herald and the Sussex Daily Advertiser, two prominent local newspapers, and described the range of services as "linen drapery, mercery, haberdashery and hosiery". This single shop was the origin of the Hanningtons department store.

In the early 19th century Brighton grew rapidly and was a favourite destination of wealthy visitors from London. The shop's central position on what diarist and journalist H.R. Attree called "the Bond-street of Brighton" enabled it to thrive immediately. In 1816 Smith Hannington's mother died and he received an inheritance, and his new wife provided some more money. This allowed him to buy several nearby shop units, allowing him to expand the shop to become Brighton's largest department store. In the same year the store was granted a Royal Warrant. By 1847 he had acquired the leases or the freehold of numbers 1, 2 and 4 North Street, a house on Market Street and eight shops on Brighton Place (behind North Street). He leased some of them to other businesses, but others were used to expand the department store. He also acquired a building on nearby East Street and diversified into the funeral arranging and undertaking business from these premises.

Smith Hannington died in 1855, leaving two surviving children and his wife Elizabeth. Charles Smith Hannington, his only surviving son, took over the business. Its success and profitability by this time allowed him to buy a country estate in Hurstpierpoint, just outside Brighton. Two of Charles Hannington's nine children followed him into the business: Samuel, who later took over the business, and James. James's intellectual curiosity was "totally unsuited to business life", and after studying at Oxford he became the first Bishop of Equatorial East Africa and was martyred in 1885.