Railway station bookstalls

Introduction

What might be called the traditional railway station bookstall has now largely disappeared although they were a once common sight on station concourses and on the platforms of many major railway stations. Their modern equivalent are rather different being 'walk-in' shops, generally forming part of a larger group of retail, food and coffee outlets. Whilst researching GWR and LNER sponsored playing cards (early Waddington's Beautiful Britain cards) we were able to add these packs to our collection, and they rekindled memories of the large bookstall at Chester. Although Culham, being a small country station, never boasted a bookstall we decided to do a bit of research into the history of these iconic station features and this page provides a brief insight into the subject.

These particular playing cards bear no company branding or advertisement, other than that on the packaging itself.

The first bookstalls

The earliest station bookstall appears to have been opened at London & Blackwall Railway's Fenchurch Street Station in 1841 by a William Marshall who already supplied newspapers wholesale to the Great Western Railway. His example was followed slowly until 1850 when the system of railway bookstalls started to expand rapidly.

During the following decade Messrs. H.B.Marshall & Sons, founded by Horace Marshall who was William Marshall's son, became contractors for the Great Western and the South Wales Railways. H.B.Marshall & Sons were later to be acquired by John Menzies & Company. A Bristol firm named Walkley & Son held the bookstall contract with the Bristol & Exeter Railway and various one-station agreements were also made here and there by local traders.

J.Willing & Company

One early pioneer of the railway bookstall was J.Willing. We have been able to find out very little about him, but he was apparently an advertising contractor who spotted the potential and, in 1863, bought the exclusive rights to sell books and post advertisements throughout the London Underground network, for an initial period of three years. This contract cost him £1,150, but when he sought to renew it for a further seven the cost had gone up to £34,000! As well as bookstalls on the London Underground, Willing is also believed to have operated a bookstall in at least one overground station. This photograph, taken in August 1916 and held in the Historic England Archive, shows one of the comapny's bookstalls at King's Cross station, although it is not clear whether this is in the underground or not. It is possible that either the business was taken over by John Menzies & Company, or that their contracts were allowed to lapse allowing other operators to take over.

Standing at the station bookstall in the background to the right is understood to be John Alfred Noke who was in charge of the bookstall at Skipton railway station from 1899 until his retirement in 1938, having been employed by WH Smith & Son for nearly 53 years.
In the foreground is Alfred Norman who was the Station Master at Skipton from October 1877 to the end of October 1908, when he retired after 44 year's service with the Midland Railway.
WH Smith's bookstall at Skipton Station in 1907
Photograph reproduced by kind permission of the Ellwood and Rowley families
and North Yorkshire County Council, Skipton Library, Rowley Collection

WH Smith & Son

The first W.H.Smith (William Henry) was born in 1792 just weeks before the sudden death of his father Henry Walton Smith, who only a few months previously had established a small newspaper round (or 'newswalk') in Berkeley Square, London. In 1821, W.H.Smith opened a reading room in the Strand and went on to create a country-wide newspaper distribution network using mail-coaches. At the age of 21 his son, also William Henry, became a partner in the family business in 1846. This was during the peak of ‘railway mania’, and he quickly saw the potential of railways which offered a faster and more reliable way of distributing newspapers around the country. He soon created a genuinely national business acquiring wholesale distribution warehouses in Dublin, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool.

In the early 1840s, many stations had vendors selling disreputable publications or soiled newspapers. Smith, however, believed that the opportunity existed for a more professional business selling papers and cheap books to the many passengers now using the railway. He chose to establish his first site at Euston, the London terminus for the London North & Western Railway, and in the summer of 1848 he began negotiations to take over from the incumbent vendor, an ex-LWNR messenger called Gibbs, who was ousted allowing the first WH Smith railway bookstall to be opened there in the November of that year.

The number of Smith's bookstalls rapidly grew, securing contracts with, in 1848 - London & North Western Railway, 1851 - Great Northern Railway, London & South Western Railway, Eastern Counties Railway, Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, London Brighton & South Coast Railway, North Staffordshire Railway, North British Railway, 1852 - South Eastern Railway, Manchester Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway, 1854 - Midland Railway, and in 1863, with the Great Western Railway. One innovation which Smith introduced was a subscription library whereby books loaned to members could be returned to any WH Smith bookstall. The image of a Smith's bookstall in 1916 is interesting as next to it can be seen a tobacconist's stall operated by Finlay & Co. Ltd., who were to be taken over by John Menzies & Company in 1922.

Smith’s bookstalls therefore became a familiar sight on many main line and secondary stations but in 1905, when the rental contracts for the 2,000 Great Western Railway and London & North Western Railway stations came up for renewal, the business was presented with a steep rise in rent. The company responded by opening some 150 new shops in the streets leading to stations and greatly reducing the number of outlets on stations themselves. In 1906, the February edition of the Great Western Railway Magazine reported that 'On January 1st Messrs. Wyman & Sons assumed control of the bookstalls at Great Western stations in succession to Messrs. W.H.Smith & Son.' The magazine went on to note that several new features were to be introduced including, at most stations, the sale of tobacco.

From 'The Tatler' (no.246, March 14, 1906) Author's collection

Retail outlets operated by WH Smith are still a common sight in both town and shopping centres, and within many railway stations. Major stations might once have played host to several newspaper stands on different platforms, but redeveloped station outlets tend to be found now in main circulation areas rather than on platforms. Reminders of old stands can sometimes be found, such as this one in the booking hall of Baker Street underground station in London as seen in 2022.

Wymans' staff and bookstall at Redruth
Undated postcard from an unknown publisher
Courtesy of Mark Crombie

Wyman & Sons Ltd.

The origins of this company can be traced as far back as 1777. They were a successful printing company, with many large and prestigious contracts. During their long history there were many changes of name, partners, and owners but our interest really starts in 1891 when a new limited liability company, Wyman & Sons Ltd., was formed utilising the assets of a previously failed incarnation. 1901 saw a new factory being built in Caversham, outside Reading, with the printing activity transferred there and only a head office remaining in London.

Click or tap to see the two-page article from the magazine
New Wyman's bookstall on High Wycombe station in 1953
From 'The Architect and Building News', February 5, 1953 Author's collection

Wyman's stepped in when WH Smith gave up many of their station bookstalls establishing themselves as a retailer as well as a printer. In many locations this resulted in some serious competition, with WH Smith opening a shop in town and Wyman's running the bookstall on the station. By 1907 Wyman & Sons Ltd. held bookstall contracts with the Great Western, the London & North Western, North London, and Bakerloo railways.

Wymans continued to expand their retail side, both before and after WWII, but many of the station bookstalls must have been getting rather old and in need of replacement. The illustration taken from The Architect and Building News from February 1953 shows the new 'standard' design for these replacements, the one illustrated being at High Wycombe. Click or tap on the image to see the full article which included scale drawings. In 1959, John Menzies & Co. Ltd. took over the company and the Wyman & Sons name but sold the printing side which was able to continue under the old name of Cox & Wyman Ltd.

Eason's station bookstall at Waterford in 1924
Image courtesy of the National Library of Ireland on The Commons

Eason & Son

Charles Eason was the manager of the WH Smith railway bookstall at Victoria station in Manchester when, in 1856, Smith asked him to go to Dublin to manage his Irish newspaper distribution business and appointed him as the manager of the Eden Quay branch of W.H.Smith & Son. He soon turned his attention to extending the business, the main development being railway bookstalls. At the time railways in Ireland were undergong major expansion growing from about 870 miles in 1854 to almost 2,000 by 1866. As early as 1872 Eason asked Smith for a partnership but Smith declined. Eason bought the business from Smith in 1886 and, together with his son, also named Charles, formed it into a private company with the title of 'Eason & Son, Limited'. They continued to expand the business and by 1890 the firm had nearly all the railway station main contracts.

As with all large companies there were many changes over the years and the last of the Eason railway bookstalls, which was at Waterford, closed in 1978. The Eason's kiosk from Portadown station can be seen preserved in the Irish Rail Collection gallery of the Ulster Transport Museum. In 2020 Easons announced that their remaining bookshops in Northern Ireland, which had been closed due to Covid restrictions, were not to reopen. They did retain a large presence in the Republic of Ireland however.

Menzies' bookstall at St Enoch station Glasgow circa 1936
Image courtesy Glasgow City Archives, D-CA8/2732

John Menzies & Company

In 1833 John Menzies, then aged 25, left his publishing job in London and moved to Edinburgh where he opened a bookshop at 61 Princes Street. He went on to become the only wholesale bookseller in Scotland and in 1837 he became the Scottish agent for sales of The Pickwick Papers, the first published work of Charles Dickens. In 1841, he became the agent for the famous periodical Punch and also sold The Scotsman daily newspaper over the counter. In 1857 John Menzies opened his first railway bookstall and in just a few years, the business had secured the rights to bookstalls in almost every part of Scotland, though initially missing out on the country’s two largest stations in Edinburgh. Stands at both of these stations were later added to the estate. The company formally incorporated as John Menzies & Company Ltd. in 1906.

By the time he handed John Menzies & Company over to his sons, John and Charles, the business had thriving wholesale premises in Edinburgh and Glasgow operating alongside the bookstalls. His sons continued with an era of expansion, transforming the business into a nationwide concern. In 1922 Menzies acquired the tobacconist business Finlay’s. Many of the Finlay tobacco stands were located not only in the same train stations but often alongside either the Menzies stand or that of a competitor. Acquisitions saw John Menzies’ presence continue to spread throughout the UK, and in 1960 the limited company was incorporated, followed by a share issue in 1962 with around 20% of the business distributed to employees. By 1965 the company operated 90 wholesale warehouses, 350 railway bookstalls and 161 shops.

The whole retail operation of John Menzies was sold to WH Smith in 1998, enabling Menzies to concentrate on its distribution and other business interests. John Menzies plc became the holding company of Menzies Aviation plc, an aviation services business providing ground, air cargo and plane fuelling services.