RAILWAY BOOKSTALLS.

Shannon News, 11 September 1925, Page 1

RAILWAY BOOKSTALLS.

MEMORIAL TO THE FOUNDER King’s College Hospital, England, recently celebrated the centenary of the birth, of the late Mr. W. H. Smith, founder Of the firm of W. H. Smith and Sen. For 40 years Mr. Smith served on the Committee of Management of the old .hospital, which in 1891 recorded that “his name could never cease to be remembered in gratitude.” In a, biographical sketch contributed to the Times Dr. Barker recalls that the business.--in which W. H. Smith joined his father in 1846 had no great dimensions, being concerned simply' with the distribution of newspapers to agents and private customers.

Morning by morning the father and son would drive down . from their house at Kilburn, about four o’clock in the morning, and labour themselves in their shirtsleeves at the packing and despatching of papers, setting the example and standard for their men. The father, when he took the son into partnership, was only 54. but over-work had impaired his health, and he w r us liable to fly into passions of anger with his men. It was the work of the son (and it was work which he did admirably) to bring his own spirit of sweetness to calm troubled tempers. Gently, but firmly, in the teeth of an opposition that was never pressed ■ to any extremity, the son began to find new ways of business. The first, which he was already attempting- in IS4B, was the institution of bookstalls an the stations of the English railways.

Two other things were done under the inspiration of W. H. Smith which were natural corollaries to the system of railway bookstalls. In 1854 tbo firm, took over the management of railway advertising-. _ In 1858 it began to lend books from its library as well as to sell papers and books on its stalls, up and down the country. Nor should it be forgotten that in 1554 the Times decided to deliver to Mr. W, H. Smith and Son all papers required by them for distribution in the country before any other agent was supplied —a decision which set a definite seal on the pre-eminence of the firm in the original function of its business. But it was the railway bookstalls which were W. H. Smith’s peculiar creation, and his chief legacy to his firm. Even in the later years of his political career they remained close to his heart.