A Thread to the Past
I love domestic history, and I am known to often end up like Alice : lost down the rabbit hole, in my case a rabbit hole of historical facts. When history is coupled with one of my other passions - haberdashery, in particular cotton spools with beautiful thread heads with elegant graphics - then I am in heaven! This is one such example.
D. H. Evans was a large department store along the major West End shopping strip of Oxford Street. D. H. Evans was opened in 1879 by Dan Harries Evans at 320 Oxford Street. Evans was a Welshman who had trained as draper and had moved to London in 1878. The store quickly grew and by 1885 it had absorbed three of the stores adjoining it. In 1893, the store moved into further new premises at 290 to 294 Oxford Street and became a limited liability company. In 1897, Dan Evans resigned as Managing Director but stayed on the board, and was replaced by Harrods manager Ernest Webb on the advice of Harrods and D. H. Evans director Richard Burbridge. The business continued to expand by purchasing the business of neighbors James Goodman and Arthur Saunders, and in 1906, announced the rebuilding of the collection of buildings on the west side of Old Cavendish Street. In 1915, Dan Evans retired from the board and was replaced by Ernest Webb's son William Wallace Webb. By 1928, however, D. H. Evans realized they could not expand without further investment, and due to the relationship with Harrods agreed a merger with Harrods being the senior partner, with William Burbridge becoming the chairman. 1935, land bounded by Oxford Street, Old Cavendish Street, Henrietta Street and Chapel Place was acquired and demolished for a new store designed by Louis Blanc, which opened in 1937. In 1954, Harrods was purchased by House of Fraser, and D. H. Evans become a trading arm within the Harrods group. A second D. H. Evans store was added in Wood Green, London in 1980, and the Oxford Street store was refurbished twice between 1982 and 1985. I began to shop there during this period. In 2001, the store was rebranded under the House of Fraser name. The store closed permanently in January 2022.
This small spool of creamy white thread has never been used, and comes from D. H. Evans' heyday in the Edwardian era of the early Twentieth Century. I acquired it from a collector in Dorset, divesting herself of some of her pieces as she downsizes her home. The spool has been photographed on a piece of heavily embroidered Art Deco patterned organza which I bought from a specialist shop that has a particularly wonderful range of unusual fabrics that they sell by the quarter metre (just enough for my purposes).
A Thread to the Past
I love domestic history, and I am known to often end up like Alice : lost down the rabbit hole, in my case a rabbit hole of historical facts. When history is coupled with one of my other passions - haberdashery, in particular cotton spools with beautiful thread heads with elegant graphics - then I am in heaven! This is one such example.
D. H. Evans was a large department store along the major West End shopping strip of Oxford Street. D. H. Evans was opened in 1879 by Dan Harries Evans at 320 Oxford Street. Evans was a Welshman who had trained as draper and had moved to London in 1878. The store quickly grew and by 1885 it had absorbed three of the stores adjoining it. In 1893, the store moved into further new premises at 290 to 294 Oxford Street and became a limited liability company. In 1897, Dan Evans resigned as Managing Director but stayed on the board, and was replaced by Harrods manager Ernest Webb on the advice of Harrods and D. H. Evans director Richard Burbridge. The business continued to expand by purchasing the business of neighbors James Goodman and Arthur Saunders, and in 1906, announced the rebuilding of the collection of buildings on the west side of Old Cavendish Street. In 1915, Dan Evans retired from the board and was replaced by Ernest Webb's son William Wallace Webb. By 1928, however, D. H. Evans realized they could not expand without further investment, and due to the relationship with Harrods agreed a merger with Harrods being the senior partner, with William Burbridge becoming the chairman. 1935, land bounded by Oxford Street, Old Cavendish Street, Henrietta Street and Chapel Place was acquired and demolished for a new store designed by Louis Blanc, which opened in 1937. In 1954, Harrods was purchased by House of Fraser, and D. H. Evans become a trading arm within the Harrods group. A second D. H. Evans store was added in Wood Green, London in 1980, and the Oxford Street store was refurbished twice between 1982 and 1985. I began to shop there during this period. In 2001, the store was rebranded under the House of Fraser name. The store closed permanently in January 2022.
This small spool of creamy white thread has never been used, and comes from D. H. Evans' heyday in the Edwardian era of the early Twentieth Century. I acquired it from a collector in Dorset, divesting herself of some of her pieces as she downsizes her home. The spool has been photographed on a piece of heavily embroidered Art Deco patterned organza which I bought from a specialist shop that has a particularly wonderful range of unusual fabrics that they sell by the quarter metre (just enough for my purposes).