In Newcastle an exceptionally elegant and exclusive gown and draper's establishment was opened in 1822. Mr J.J. Fenwick had been employed by the Newcastle silk mercers Charles Bragg after his arrival from Stockton in 1868. His own original shop was at 4 Northumberland street, which in those days was a fashionable residential street occupied by professionals and the Northumbrian gentry. The main shopping area was Pilgrim Street.
When two doctors at Nos. 37 and 39 moved out, Fenwick bought their fine stone houses. They had originally been built for the grandfather of the Northumberland actress Dorothea Baird, who married the great actor Henry Irving. Fenwick was called to London to design her gown - on the strict understanding that it was to be made in the house of her grandfather in Newcastle. Fenwick had his new shop-front designed by a well-known local architect, W. H. Knowles, and the splendour of the facade caused a sensation. Two large display windows each had seven graceful supporting pillars with fluting picked out in gold leaf. The windows were advanced from the building and curved round to the centre entrance in which stood a metal statue, supported by a large gas lamp. Above, there was an elegant balustrade. Fenwick permitted no crowded displays of merchandise. A few handsome costumes and furs set the character of his high-class dressmaking establishment, which was everything implied by exclusive.
Fenwick's skill as a fashion designer soon won him a clientele from the gentry, aristocracy and national personalities like Dame Ellen Terry. Crowds from all social classes flocked to view the windows of the city's finest carriage-trade store, and other retailers soon moved into nearby properties to capitalise on the growth of pavement traffic. By 1891, Fenwick felt able to take the bold step of opening a London branch in Oxford Street.
As Dr Bill Lancaster of the University of Northumbria points out, the real revolution of Northumberland Street occurred in the 1890s, when Fenwick's two sons, Fred and Arthur, returned from Paris where their father had sent them to study the fashion trade. Fred in particular was struck by the success of the Bon Marché. This grand magasin had supposedly pioneered (v. BAINBRIDGE) the concept of the 'democratisation of luxury', which allowed everyone to enter, wander round without being importuned, and examine clearly priced goods. It also developed the sense of spectacle and theatre which tantalised shoppers - ideas borrowed from the Parisian great exhibitions. Against their father's wishes the brothers changed the Northumberland Street store's merchandising policies, and its enlarged facade was designed in a similar style to the Bon Marché.
This was a social revolution of immense importance. A pitman's wife could now shop in the same store as the Duchess of Northumberland. Fenwick continued to cater for the top end of the market while sucking in the ordinary shoppers by the thousand. The store managed to combine the class of Harrods with the classlessness of Selfridges, without the geographical separation. Moreover this was achieved ten years before Selfridge embarked on his Oxford Street venture. Fenwick's opened a London store on Oxford Street in 1891. The store's late 1930s art deco Blackett Street entrance was also designed to draw in the less prosperous shoppers who had traditionally confined themselves to Clayton Street and the Grainger Market.