- CB186
- Corporate body
- 1877
Grants department store was founded by Mr Richard Grant and his brother Mr William Grant in 1877, as a modest drapery business at no. 17 Croydon High Street (then No. 8). The family lived above the shop, but within a few years they needed to expand the shop into the back garden. Later still, the shop expanded into part of the Greyhound Inn. In order to prevent the prospering business from further expansion, local traders bought the adjoining property, causing the Grant family to buy No. 16, over the road for their expansion.
When the High Street was widened, the store was rebuilt over the road, (the West side) in Numbers 14,16, 18 and 22. soon afterward they bought Numbers 20, 24 ,28, 28, 30 and 30A.
By this time the store had over 60 departments, including Hairdressing Salons, China, Glass, Hardware, Restaurants, and outside catering.
Richard Grant died aged 75 in January 1924.
The stores next expansion, in October 1929, was just behind the store, near Surrey Street, and was opened in October 1931.
William Grant died on the 3rd of March 1931 aged 79. William and Richard Grant left behind 3 sons between them, R. Donald Grant, W. H. Goss Grant, and Sidney T. Grant, who all ran the store together after their fathers deaths.
In 1959 Grants became a public limited company.
In 1960, when the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh visited Croydon, the Grants store provided the afternoon tea, which was hosted by the mayor.
The Grant family sold the store in 1983, and it finally closed in 1987.