Family Business

Granted access to company and family archives, the award-winning biographer Victoria Glendinning presents an unvarnished history of one of Britain's best-loved stores.

She tells how the first shop that penniless orphan John Lewis opened on Oxford Street met the aspirations of the Victorian middle class, and how success led to quarrels between him and his sons, before explaining the partnership model that emerged, and reviewing the firm's subsequent history and future prospects.