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Blackwell UK

Company type	Private
Industry	Retail Bookselling Wholesale
Founded	1879
Founder	Benjamin Henry Blackwell
Headquarters	Oxford , England, UK
Number of locations	45 stores (2012)
Area served	UK
Key people	Toby Blackwell (Owner) Trevor Goul-Wheeker (Chairman)
Products	Books, Maps
Revenue	£77.02 million (2011)
Operating income	- £5 million (2011)
Number of employees	1,000
Website	www.blackwell.co.uk

Blackwell UK, also known as Blackwell's and Blackwell Group, is a British academic book retailer and library supply service originally founded in 1879 by Benjamin Henry Blackwell, after whom the chain is named. Based in Oxford, the original Broad Street branch is now part of a larger chain of 45 shops, as well as an accounts and library supply service, employing around 1000 staff across all divisions.

The Broad street branches, which include specialty music and art/poster shops, remained the only branches until expansion in the early 1990s, when at peak after taking over the Heffers brand in Cambridge in 1999 and the James Thin academic chain in Scotland in 2002, the company had over 70 branches. The company's library supply chain serves internationally, but parts were sold off in 2009, with the North American arm of Blackwell Book Services and Australian business James Bennett sold to Baker & Taylor and folded into Baker & Taylor's existing academic library arm, YBP Library Services. The group were also publishers, under the Blackwell publishing brand which published over 800 journals when it was sold to publishers John Wiley & Sons in 2007 for £572 million to form Wiley-Blackwell.

The Blackwell family have been in charge of the company since its foundation, with a share structure divided between voting shares owned by the family and wealth shares owned by family and other parties. However, following a public spat between Julian 'Toby' Blackwell, current owner of the group and Nigel Blackwell, former chairman of the publishing arm in 2002, concerning the possible selling of the publishing business, leading to an offer from Taylor & Francis of £300 million and to the eventual deal with John Wiley & Son in 2006, Nigel Blackwell and Toby's son Philip Blackwell left the business, leaving Toby Blackwell the sole family member still part of running the company. The other voting shares left by the other family members are currently held by a trust, which Toby's shares will transfer to when he dies, eventually bringing an end to the Blackwell family involvement with the company. Toby Blackwell announced in 2009 that the wealth shares would be distributed between staff, transforming the company into an employee-partnership, similar to that of retailer John Lewis, when the company returns to profitability having spent several years experiencing losses. The company reported it was expecting to return to profit in 2012.

On 29 October 2012, Blackwells was - with Foyles, John Lewis department stores, Waitrose, Sainsbury's and Argos - among the retailers to launch the nook e-reader - and from, November, the nook HD and nook HD+ tablet computers.

History & Developments

Blackwell signage outside the Charing Cross Road branch

Blackwell family

The company was originally founded on 1st January 1879 by Benjamin Henry Blackwell, at 50 Broad Street, Oxford. Benjamin’s father, Benjamin Harris Blackwell had founded his own second-hand bookshop prior to the formation of the current company in 1845, located in St Clements’ and also became the Chief Librarian of Oxford in due part from his influence with the Temperance Society, which promoted religion, self-education and reading. However, Benjamin Harris died when Benjamin Henry was 6, leaving him to be apprenticed following his formal education to Charles Richards, an Oxford bookseller, aged 13. Benjamin Henry went onto become the first Liberal councillor for Oxford North.

Benjamin’s son, Basil Blackwell, born 1889, gained a scholarship to Merton College and following a spell at Oxford University Press, went to join his father in the running of the business in 1913. He expanded the publishing arm, opening Blackwell & Mott publishing and saving Shakespeare Head publishers in 1921, folding them into the company, B H Blackwell Ltd in 1924, as well as opening Blackwell Scientific in 1939. Basil also oversaw large scale expansion of the retail business, as well as becoming a leading figure in the publishing industry, becoming President of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association in 1927 and of the Bookseller’s Association between 1934 and 1936. He received his knighthood for services to bookselling in 1956 . Basil handed control of the company to his sons, Richard Blackwell and Julian (Toby) Blackwell, in the early 1960’s and became company President until his death in 1984. Richard became company Chairman and Toby oversaw the expansion of the Broad Street branch until 1980, when Richard died, passing his control of the company on to his sons, Nigel and Miles Blackwell.

Nigel became the company’s Managing Director between 1983 and 1989, Toby assumed leadership of the retail business and Miles oversaw Blackwell Scientific and the Library supply arm. The company continued to expand into the 1990’s, with Nigel overseeing the merger of B H Publishers and Blackwell Scientific into Blackwell Publishing, Toby becoming Chairman, opening up new flagship stores and acquiring other retail brands, and Miles expanding the library service internationally, reaching into North American, Australian and Asian markets. In 1997, Miles retired to spend time with his wife, selling his shares to the rest of the family, but died unexpectedly in 2001. Toby stepped down from his position in 1999 into an active, non-executive role and was replaced by his son Philip who joined in 2000 as company Chairman.

Divisions about the direction of the company, then said to be worth £500 million, [] became public knowledge in 2002 when Toby, who with Philip had a controlling share of voting rights, tried to lobby shareholders into the sale of Blackwell Publishing to Taylor and Francis, who had launched a hostile bid of £300 million for the publisher. [] Nigel Blackwell, who was Publishing Chairman at the time, firmly opposed this move, having the support of the board despite a lesser share of the voting rights. [] Several emergency shareholder meetings were called, with the bid eventually being rejected due to Toby being 2pc short of voting share needed to approve the deal. [] Toby has publically stated that damage to family relations is‘...nothing like as much as you might think," [] but the issues were not fully resolved and further exacerbated by an attempt to sell the retail business in 2004, until 2006, when Blackwell Publishing was sold to John Wiley & Sons for £572 million, and Nigel and Philip left the business. []

Toby Blackwell is the last remaining member of the Blackwell family to be involved with the running of the business, owning 100% of the voting shares, and has stated that when he dies, control of the company will pass to a trust which “...has been most thoroughly drawn up so that it will be impervious to any attempted interference by my family" [] thus bringing Blackwell family involvement to an end. Toby is currently involved in transforming the company into an employee-partnership, similar in style to retailer John Lewis, [] as well as providing addition funding to the company through Toby Blackwell Ltd. []

Retail

The original shop was only 12 foot square, with enough room “for a chair, one standing customer and a back room for storage” [], and sold both new and rare second-hand stock []. The first catalogue contained 667 books and was valued at £110, including works by Milton, Wordsworth, as well as Latin and Greek classics. The catalogue also contained rare first editions of Hobbes ‘Leviathan’ and illustrated versions of Loggans ‘Oxoniana Illustrata’ []. Accounts for the first year of trade reported a profit of £226 []. Benjamin Henry went on to form Blackwell Publishing in 1879[] and the ABA in 1906 and became its president 1912 []. The shop expanded into 51 Broad Street in 1884, replacing ‘Lockwood’s Tailors’[] and into Bliss Court, a collection of cottages located behind the shop which eventually was knocked down to make way for the New Bodleian Library in 1936, and involved the rebuilding of 50 and 51[]. Due to this expansion, 49 and 48 Broad Street became structurally dangerous, but were repaired and leased to the Blackwell family from Trinity College for £155 annually over 80 years [].

When Basil Blackwell joined the company, he was charged with expanding the publishing arm of the company, oversaw the purchase of ‘Shakespeare Head Press’ in 1921, and incorporated in Blackwell Publishing, which already had published authors including J.R.R. Tolkien, W. H. Auden and ? [] When Benjamin died in 1924, Basil took over the entire company and led it through an expansion period, including the opening of the Norrington Room, a large underground extension underneath the Trinity College quadrangle. [] Measuring 10,000 square foot and 3 miles of shelving, the extension named after Sir Arthur Norrington, President of Trinity College merited an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest single room selling books. [] By the time Basil died in 1984, branches had been opened across the country, including York in the late 1960’s [], the specialty music shop in Oxford and a branch in Bristol in 1977 [], and continued to expand with openings in St Andrews in 1986[] and the specialty Art shop in Oxford in 1988[], among others. The 1990’s were a period a large-scale expansion for the chain, with the UK’s first transactional online bookshop being set up in 1995 on blackwell.co.uk. [] A flagship store in Charing Cross opened in 1998[], and the Heffers brand in Cambridge was purchased in 1999, with the company retaining the branding.[]

During 2002, Blackwells purchased the James Thin chain of academic bookshops, bringing the chains to its peak number of branches of 72, [] and brought in Dominic Myers as Managing Director. [] This signalled a period of change and consolidation for the chain, with Toby Blackwell initiating a failed bid to buy the retail chain outright in 2005, and Vince Gunn replacing Myers as MD in 2006. Permanent store numbers started decreasing to around 40 [] but many areas were alternatively served by ‘pop-up’ shops, which trade at the beginning of an academic year. []