Marsden connection to an American tradition

Dec 31 2008 by Andrew Baldwin, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

LORD & Taylor, based in New York, is the oldest upmarket department store chain in the United States.

Since 1826, the stores have built a reputation for service, for quality, and most of all, for style.

The windows of the flagship location on Fifth Avenue have been making an impact on the New York fashion scene for more than 90 years.

But did you know there is a Marsden connection behind this American tradition?

The saga begins in 1804 when George Taylor of the Marsden blacksmith’s shop emigrated to the infant United States, settling at New York.

Subsequently marrying a local woman – of Dutch descent – he had a son, George Washington Taylor, born 1808.

Meanwhile, Samuel Lord – who also worked at the Marsden blacksmith’s shop and was a relative of the Taylors – sailed across the Atlantic and also decided to live in New York.

According to the company history, Samuel was the youngest of nine orphans and George Washington Taylor was his wife’s cousin.

In 1826 the two set up a dry goods shop at Catherine Street in the Battery district of New York under the name of Lord & Taylor.

It was the start of a remarkable success story.

Samuel Lord, then aged 23, opened the small dry goods store with $1,000 borrowed from his wife Mary’s uncle, John Taylor.

Catherine Street was then one of New York’s major shopping streets and the store, which sold fabric and ready made items such as hosiery and shawls, was enlarged by the end of the year.

Ever the entrepreneur, Lord also opened a dry goods store in New Orleans in the 1840s which was operated by his chief clerk Thomas Medley.

The store grew, moving to increasingly larger buildings on Broadway and by 1850 had begun manufacturing some of its own merchandise.

Today there are 54 stores, concentrated in the eastern United States, and the chain has a number of firsts under its belt.

It was the first major store on Fifth Avenue, the first to have an elevator, the first on Fifth Avenue to have a woman president (Dorothy Shaver in 1946) and the first to have innovative Christmas windows filled with holiday displays rather than merchandise.

It was the first department store to have “fixed prices”, meaning no discounts.

Lord & Taylor is also known for playing the national anthem before the start of each business day.

At 10am each morning, everyone stands to attention as the Star-Spangled Banner is played. Some employees hold their hands over their hearts.

Having made his fortune, George Washington Taylor retired from the business in 1852 and came back to Britain, setting up home in Hyde, near Manchester.

From previous trans-Atlantic visits, he was already well known in Marsden and a benefactor of several local causes.

He gave a generous amount to the new school, built on the site of the old Taylor’s blacksmith’s shop and still there in 2008.

George married the daughter of his uncle, James Taylor, also a partner in the blacksmith’s shop.

Another uncle was Enoch Taylor, who made the cloth cropping machine which provoked the Luddite riots, culminating in the murder of Marsden mill-owner William Horsfall.

George Washington Taylor died in 1879 at the age of 71 and is interred in Marsden, his grave marked by a 25-foot tall granite obelisk.

Samuel took as his partners his eldest son John T Lord and long-time store employee John S Lyle as his partners after the departure of George.

Lord retired in 1863 and he too moved back to England.

The two founders were succeeded by other family members in early days but the last of the Lords and the Taylors were out by the turn of the 20th century.

Thanks to Examiner reader David Smithies, of Salendine Nook, for the information in this article.