Marks & Spencer

Marks and Spencer plc (commonly abbreviated to M&S and colloquially known as Marks & Sparks or simply Marks) is a major British multinational retailer based in London, England, that specialises in selling clothing, beauty products, home products and food products. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

M&S was founded in 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in Leeds. Through its television advertising it asserts the exclusive nature and luxury of its food and beverages. It also offers an online food delivery service through a joint venture with Ocado. In 1980, M&S became the first British supermarket chain to sell packaged sandwiches.

In 1998, M&S became the first British retailer to make a pre-tax profit of over £1 billion, although it then went into a sudden slump taking the company and its stakeholders by surprise. In November 2008 the company began to sell branded goods such as Kellogg's corn flakes. In November 2009, it was announced that Marc Bolland, formerly of Morrisons, would take over as chief executive from executive chairman Sir Stuart Rose. In the early 21st century clothing sales fell, while food sales increased, after M&S dropped its traditional St. Michael brand.

On 22 May 2018, M&S announced that it would close over 100 stores by 2022 in a "radical" plan. It cut 7,000 jobs in 2020 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2021, M&S announced plans to close another 30 shops over the next 10 years as part of its turnaround plan. In its 2024 results the company stated that it was aiming at reducing locations to 180 full-line and 420 food stores in the UK, commenting that legacy stores were more expensive to operate.

The company was founded by a partnership between Michael Marks, a Polish Jew born in Slonim (now Belarus), who had migrated to Leeds, England in the early 1880s, and Thomas Spencer, a cashier from the English market town of Skipton in North Yorkshire. Marks worked for a company in Leeds called Barran, which employed Jewish migrants (see Sir John Barran, 1st Baronet). In 1884, he met Isaac Jowitt Dewhirst while looking for work. Dewhirst lent Marks £5 (equivalent to £687 in 2023), which he used to establish his penny bazaar on Kirkgate Market in Leeds.

Dewhirst also taught him a little English. Dewhirst's cashier was Thomas Spencer, a bookkeeper, whose second wife, Agnes, helped improve Marks's English. In 1894, when Marks acquired a permanent stall in the Leeds covered market, he invited Spencer to become his partner.

In 1901, Marks moved to the Birkenhead open market in North West England, amalgamating his business with Spencer's. In 1903, the two men were allocated stall numbers 11 and 12 in the centre aisle; there they opened the penny bazaar. The company left Birkenhead Market on 24 February 1923.

The next few years saw Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer move the original Leeds penny bazaar to 20, Cheetham Hill Road, Manchester, and they also opened market stalls in many locations around the North West of England. Spencer died in 1905, and Marks in 1907; Michael Marks' son Simon became chairman in 1916. Under Simon Marks, the company acquired other chains of penny bazaars, growing into a retail empire.