{{Short description|Former British department store chain}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2015}} {{Use British English|date=September 2015}} {{Infobox company | name = G.J.Keddie & Sons Limited | logo = | caption = | type = Private company | foundation = 1892 | defunct = 1996 | location = Southend-on-Sea | industry = Retail | key_people = Murray David Maitland Keddie | fate = Administration | genre = Department store | num_employees = | successor = | parent = | website = | subsid = }} '''Keddies''' was a small chain of department stores in Essex, England, with its flagship store in a prime location in Southend High Street (originally called the Broadway). The business had a national reputation, being recognised in ''The Fashion Handbook'',<ref>{{cite book|title=The Fashion Handbook|author=Tim Jackson, David Shaw|isbn=9781134521128|publisher=Taylor & Francis|date=2004|page=108}}</ref> appearing on the side of a Matchbox model 17C bus<ref>{{cite web|url=http://mbx-u.com/ver-detail-var-listing.php?model=SF0240-014|title=17C London Bus, Keddies No.1 in Essex|accessdate=}}</ref> and being one of the retailers that fought to remove Retail Price Maintenance. The business grew in the 1970s opening further branches across Essex, before closing them during the 1980s. Keddies closed for business on 26 February 1996 after going into administration.<ref name=Timeline>{{cite web|last1=Skinner|first1=Nicholas|title=Keddies|url=http://www.southendtimeline.com/keddies.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120506054136/http://www.southendtimeline.com/keddies.htm|url-status=usurped|archive-date=6 May 2012|website=Southend Timeline|accessdate=17 September 2014}}</ref>
== Early years == George James Keddie was born in Hintlesham in Suffolk in March 1855. At 16 he moved to Auchtermuchty in Scotland to work as an apprentice at his Uncle, John Keddie's drapery store, but in 1879 he returned to Suffolk and married Laura Fletcher.<ref name=H&T/> By 1881, Keddie was working as a draper in Braintree in Essex, however in 1892 he opened a Drapery at 144-146 High Street, Southend.<ref name=H&T>{{cite web|last1=Worpole|first1=Chris|title=G. J. Keddie & Sons|url=http://www.hadleighhistory.org.uk/page_id__200.aspx|website=Hadleigh and Thundersley Community Archive|publisher=Hadleigh History|accessdate=17 September 2014}}</ref> The store expanded by buying neighbouring stores<ref>{{cite news|title=Transactions|newspaper=Chemist and Druggist|volume=80|page=8|date=1912}}</ref> and become a full department store, selling everything from penny lines to more extravagant goods. In the middle of 1906, ''The Record'' published pictures of what it considered to be the best British window displays and Keddies was regularly featured.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Department Store. A Social History|author=William Lancaster|page=71|date=1995|publisher=Leicester University Press |isbn=9780718513740}}</ref> This included a mechanical window display designed by Arthur Maitland Keddie which was observed in US publication ''Style'' in 1908.<ref>{{cite magazine|title=English Mechanical Window|magazine=Style|date=1908}}</ref> Arthur Maitland Keddie went onto win several prizes for his window dressings<ref>{{cite book|title=Modern Drapery and Allied Trades Wholesale and Retail by Leading Specialists in Every Department|author=William S. Murphy|date=1914|page=6}}</ref> including the journal ''The Review'''s first prize for the ''best decked and most original show window in the world''<ref>{{cite book|title=Cultures of Selling Perspectives on Consumption and Society Since 1700|author=Laura Ugolini|date=2018|publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781351946698}}</ref> and wrote the 1912 book ''Window Dressing for Beginners'', which was seen as a manual by the drapery trade.<ref>{{cite book|title=LA CONQUÊTE DES CLIENTS Les magasins Gonset et la Suisse occidentale (1920-1960)|author=Joël Jornod|page=287|date=2019|publisher=Editions Alphil-Presses universitaires suisses |isbn=9782889302420}}</ref> During the First World War, Arthur Maitland Keddie organised day trips for wounded soldiers from the Queen Mary Naval Hospital to Thundersley and Runwell.<ref>{{cite book|title=Southend-on-Sea in the Great War|author=Frances Clamp|date=2014|publisher=Pen and Sword |isbn=9781473840775}}</ref>
In 1921, George James Keddie died aged 65, leaving the business to his three sons, Arthur Maitland Fletcher Keddie, Frederick Wallace Keddie and George Douglas Fletcher Keddie.<ref name=H&T/> The business was grown by the brothers, opening drapery stores in London Road, Hadleigh (on the corner with Rectory Road closed 1946/47);<ref name=H&T/> Market Hill, Coggeshall (Sold 1928 <ref>{{cite web|url=https://secureweb1.essexcc.gov.uk/SeaxPAM/result_details.aspx?DocID=940018|title=Essex Records Office|accessdate=18 October 2018|archive-date=18 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181018161740/https://secureweb1.essexcc.gov.uk/SeaxPAM/result_details.aspx?DocID=940018|url-status=dead}}</ref>) and on The Broadway, Leigh-on-Sea (on the corner with Oakleigh Park Drive).<ref name=H&T /> The business boomed during the 1920s even though there was competition from J F Dixons, Brightwells and Thomas Brothers.<ref>{{cite book|title=Southend Memories|author=Dee Gordon|date=2006|publisher=The History Press |isbn=9780750953283}}</ref> With this success the main store was completely rebuilt and expanded in 1934, with an impressive frontage that aped the main Selfridges store in Oxford Street, London.<ref name=Timeline /> People would take the train from the east-end of London to shop at Keddies. {{Citation needed|date=October 2016}} In 1948, Keddies became one of the founding members of the Associated Independent Stores buying group.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://aistores.co.uk/who-we-are|title=Who we are|website=Associated Independent Stores|access-date =19 February 2023}}</ref>
==Expansion== Keddies continued to grow under David and Peter Keddie, and in 1960 they bought a disused cinema, the Essoldo, that was located behind their store and opened Southend's first supermarket, which was also one of the first discounters in the UK, Supa-Save.<ref name=Timeline /><ref>{{cite journal|title=Supermarket Investments|journal=Investors Chronicle and Money Market Review|volume=218|page=199|date=1962}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=On its way in the discount store|journal=Time & Tide|author=Susanne Puddlefoot|volume=42|page=258|date=1961}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Discount Houses|journal=International Management|volume=17|page=61|date=1962}}</ref> The new store had 15 aisles and 15,000 Square foot, and in the first Saturday of its doors opening, they had to be closed after just a quarter of an hour due to the size of the crowd.<ref>{{cite book|title=Modernity Britain A Shake of the Dice, 1959-62|author=David Kynaston|page=107|date=2014|publisher=Bloomsbury |isbn=9781408844397}}</ref> Through Supa-Save, Keddies challenged the retail status quo and was instrumental in eventually abolishing the Retail Price Maintenance, or RPM (fixed supplier pricing, see Resale price maintenance), against legal and regulatory opposition. Following a number of injunctions, court cases, and joining forces with other retailers, the RPM was eventually abolished in 1964.<ref>[https://archive.org/stream/b19974760M4477#page/n11/mode/2up/search/keddie The Chemist and Druggist, May 5, 1962, p.485]</ref><ref>[https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.223570/2015.223570.Competition-For#page/n1/mode/2up/search/keddies Competition For Consumers, Christina Fulop, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1966 (pp. 142, 143, 151)]</ref>
thumb|Maitland House on the rear left
In addition to Supa-Save, a large extension of 35,000 square feet<ref name=cq/> was added to the rear of the original store, which was connected to the original store by a bridge over, and a tunnel under Leather Lane. The development was completed by Norwich Union<ref name=Delargy>{{cite journal|url=https://www.building.co.uk/focus/inside-information/1003069.article|title=Inside Information|journal=Building|author=Melanie Delargy|date=19 January 2001}}</ref><ref name=eg/> included an office block called Maitland House (after the Keddie's family name), and a parking lot which was all designed by the modernist architects Yorke Rosenberg Mardall, in what was the first building to feature their ubiquitous white tile styling.<ref>{{cite book|title=A Different World Emigre Architects in Britain 1928-1958|author=Charlotte Benton|isbn=9781872911502|page=204|date=1995|publisher=RIBA Heinz Gallery }}</ref> The cost of the project was £600,000.<ref>{{cite periodical|title=Southend-on-Sea, Essex|periodical=The Civil Engineer|volume=15|page=238|date=1961}}</ref> The car parking system, using a lift and trollies was seen not to have much of a future by the ''Architects' Journal'' in 1965.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Multi-Storey Car Parks|journal=Architects' Journal|volume=143|page=91|date=1965}}</ref> Photos of the iconic store interior in 1963 are on the RIBA picture website, and along with Cole Brothers in Sheffield, were seen as the pioneers in using Brutialism in retail architecture by RIBA.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Brutialism|journal=RIBA Journal|volume=84|issue=1–6|page=12|date=1977}}</ref> An article on the design of the building appeared in the October–December 1963 edition of Concrete Monthly, the magazine from the Cement and Concrete Association.<ref name=cq>{{cite web|url=https://www.concretecentre.com/getmedia/00738a30-3425-477a-9b1f-2e6574866b3b/CQ_059_Winter1963.PDF.aspx|title=Concrete Quarterly - Issue 59 Winter 1963|accessdate=18 October 2018}}</ref> The development received a Civic Trust Award in 1963.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.civictrustawards.org.uk/benet/schemes/store-of-g.j.keddie-sons-ltd.-with-office-block-and-parking-garage|title=Store of G.J.Keddie & Sons Ltd. With Office Block and Parking Garage|website=Civic Trust Awards|access-date=22 February 2023}}</ref> Maitland House was the home of KeyMed Medical & Industrial Equipment in 1969,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.olympus.co.uk/company/en/careers/our-impact-in-the-uk-and-ireland/|title=Our impact in the UK and Ireland|website=Olympus Corporation|access-date=22 February 2023|archive-date=22 February 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230222181850/https://www.olympus.co.uk/company/en/careers/our-impact-in-the-uk-and-ireland/|url-status=dead}}</ref> and between 1972 and 1996 it was home to the Access credit card company. In the late 1960s, a new store was opened in Queen Street, Colchester.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/8894549.old-keddies-store-faces-demolition/|title=Old Keddies store faces demolition|newspaper=The Gazette|date=7 March 2011}}</ref>
In 1970 Supa-Save was closed because of competition from chain supermarkets entering Southend. The old building was demolished and the department store extended over the site in 1971, again designed by Yorke Rosenberg Mardall.<ref name=eg>{{cite periodical|title=Southend Department Store to be extended|periodical=The Estates Gazette|volume=215|page=657|date=1970}}</ref> Yorke Rosenberg Mardall were again employed when the store was planned to be extended on the site of the old National Provincial Bank in 1973.<ref>{{cite book|title=Contemporary Architects|author=Muriel Emanuel|date=2016|isbn=9781349041848|page=686|publisher=Springer }}</ref> The development included getting permission to close Leather Lane which divided the new and old building, which permission was received in 1975<ref>{{cite periodical|title=Town and Country Planning Act 1971|periodical=The London Gazette|page=2941|date=1975}}</ref> and was constructed by Bovis Construction for £150,000.<ref>{{cite magazine|title=Bovis Construction|magazine=Director|volume=28|page=96|date=1975}}</ref> The extension had a new banking hall for National Westminster Bank being located on the first floor and accessed by escalators. The original store frontage was covered over with white slats to try and visually tie the old building into the new tiled building, with only a few of the columns left exposed and painted blue. In the 1980s, Keddies took Norwich Union to court regarding issues with the floors in the new buildings.<ref name=Delargy/>
The business further grew in the 1970s opening branches in Romford, after purchasing the site from the Hammerson group,<ref>{{cite magazine|title=New Wines|magazine=Decanter|date=1983}}</ref><ref>{{cite periodical|title=Romford, Essex|periodical=The Estates Gazette|volume=230|page=583|date=1974}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/25709491.romford-1982-liberty-market-place-christmas-eve/|title=Romford 1982: The Liberty and Market Place on Christmas eve|newspaper=Romford Recorder|date=24 December 2025}}</ref> and Stratford High Street (former Boardmans store). Most of these had closed by the late 1980s, with the Stratford store closing in 1984 before being demolished and making way for Boardman House,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newham.gov.uk/Documents/Environment%20and%20planning/StratfordStJohnsConservationAreaAppraisalFINAL[1].pdf|title=Stratford St Johns Conservation Area Page 18|accessdate=1 Dec 2014|archive-date=7 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170407044253/https://www.newham.gov.uk/Documents/Environment%20and%20planning/StratfordStJohnsConservationAreaAppraisalFINAL%5B1%5D.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> and the Colchester store closing in 1996. The Colchester store was on two sides of Queen Street, with one side now being replaced by Priory Walk,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.inkpendownie.co.uk/news/blog-priory-walk-mixed-use-development|title=Priory Walk mixed use development|website=Ink Pen Downie|date=11 March 2022}}</ref> while the eastern side stood until partial demolition in 2017, with the remaining building being converted into a Curzon cinema.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/15776515.keddies-building-reduced-to-rubble-ahead-of-30-million-bar-and-restaurant-scheme/|title=Keddies Building reduced to rubble ahead of 30 million bar and restaurant scheme|newspaper=The Daily Gazette|date=16 December 2017}}</ref>
The store's owner, David Keddie formed, and became chairman of, Essex Radio in 1981.<ref>{{cite web|title=Keddies|url=https://www.sarfend.co.uk/insouthend.html|website=In and Around Southend-on-Sea|publisher=Sarfend.co.uk|accessdate=17 September 2014}}</ref> This later became Essex FM and then Heart Essex. Under his full name, Murray David Maitland Keddie, he became High Sheriff of Essex in 1986.
== Modernisation and administration == In the 1980s the Southend store was modernised and refitted in anticipation of more business coming to Southend with the opening of the Royals Shopping Centre. The modernisation attracted chain stores HMV,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IDZ1PojqqrI&feature=youtu.be|title=John Peel HMV advert for Suedehead by Morrisey|website=Youtube|date=1988}}</ref> Tie Rack, Olympus Sports,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/14171490.pictures-keddies---icon-southend-high-street/|title=IN PICTURES: Keddies - the icon of Southend High Street|newspaper=Evening Echo|date=2 May 2020}}</ref> Dillons the Bookstore<ref>{{cite magazine|title=EIU Business Quarterly Trade Reviews|magazine=Retail Business: Retail trade reviews|issue=17–24|page=106|date=1991}}</ref> and Cramphorn Garden Centres to open departments.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Two Essex|journal=Gc & HTJ|volume=199|issue=1–13|page=5|date=1986}}</ref> The company in 1992 made a profit of £263,813 on a turnover of £15,536,602,<ref>{{cite periodical |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PD0cAQAAMAAJ&q=%22keddies%22|title=Keddies|periodical=Key British Enterprises|volume=1-6|date=1994|publisher=The Division|page=520}}</ref> however, this new found optimism did not last and the company went into administration. On 26 February 1996 after 104 years of trading the store was closed.<ref name=Timeline />
==Building today== The building was bought by developers, who wanted to rebuild behind the 1930s High Street fascia; however they found that frontage had been badly damaged by the addition of the slats in the 60s. Instead the developers built a fibreglass copy<ref name=dg/> which still sits in the High Street. However, since the rebuilding there have been many tenants, with Tesco, JJB Sports, GAP, Clintons, Republic, Superdrug, Sports Direct, USC and HMV all holding tenancy on the High Street side.<ref name=Timeline />
thumb|Former Keddies store facing Warrior Square
The rear of the building facing Warrior Square was empty until the early 2000s<ref name=dg>{{cite news|url=https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/5474315.southend-new-nightspot-in-old-keddies/|title=Southend: New nightspot in old Keddies?|newspaper=Daily Gazette|date=18 February 2002}}</ref> when it was converted into a Travelodge, bar and restaurant and a nightclub. Maitland House was the former home to InsureandGo<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.echo-news.co.uk/sport/4063723.the-kids-are-all-right-at-southend-thanks-to-deal/|title=The kids are all right at Southend thanks to deal|newspaper=Evening Echo|date=21 January 2009}}</ref> and also houses the transmitters for Heart Essex and BBC Essex. It is currently home to call centre service provider Ventrica.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/17481051.contact-centre-business-ventrica-expands-create-120-new-jobs-southend/|title=Contact centre business Ventrica expands to create 120 new jobs in Southend|newspaper=Evening Echo|date=6 March 2019}}</ref> In March 2023, it was announced that the space above the former store was put up for sale. The space has planning permission to build 100 homes in an eleven-story extension to Maitland House.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/23419125.southend-keddies-development-site-flats-go-sale/|title=Southend Keddies development site for flats to go on sale|newspaper=Evening Echo|date=29 March 2023}}</ref>
== References == {{reflist}}
== External links == *Archive photos of Keddies Colchester by Daily Gazette - https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/19507987.archive-pictures-queen-street-colchester *Current photograph of old Keddies store, Colchester by Daily Gazette - http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/local/colchester/10819482.How_Colchester_s_new_boutique_style_cinema_could_look/ *Photograph of Boardmans, Stratford in 1971 before Keddies takeover - https://www.newhamphotos.com/p607709718/h1B03AE4F#h1b03ae4f *Photograph of Essoldo Cinema before its conversion to Supasave - https://piley.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/from-southend-to-disney-story-of-life.html *Royal Institute of British Architects ribapix.com - https://www.ribapix.com/Keddies-department-store-Southend-on-Sea-Essex-the-entrance_RIBA63136
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Category:Defunct department stores of the United Kingdom Category:Defunct retail companies of the United Kingdom Category:Retail companies established in 1892 Category:Buildings and structures in Southend-on-Sea Category:Department stores in Southend-on-Sea (town) Category:1892 establishments in England Category:Department store buildings in the United Kingdom Category:Retail companies disestablished in 1996 Category:British companies disestablished in 1996 Category:Companies based in Southend-on-Sea