Viva Brighton Issue #45 November 2016

HISTORY
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Hanningtons
‘Fake white snow, tinny music and utter magic’
Photo by Gillian Burchell
Over two hundred years
since its launch, and 15
since its closure, the
department store Hanningtons
still holds a firm
place in many Brighton
hearts. Not least those of
eighties kids like myself,
who warmly recall its experimental
Santa’s Grotto.
For Christmas one year, Hanningtons even put Santa
on the moon, offering children rides in a skyrocket.
“It felt so luxurious as a child, being escorted around
the carpeted labyrinth of floors,” recalls Luisa Clarke,
whose parents would take her there at Christmas.
“The lift had a revolving snowscape which made you
feel like you were heading to Lapland.”
Another happy customer, Lucy Wilkes, recalls “a
winter wonderland of fake white snow, tinny music
and utter magic.” These warm recollections seem
somewhat at odds with the creepy snow scenes, floral
bedrooms, sleeping mannequins and staring dolls
you’ll find frozen in the Hanningtons photos of
Brighton Past. Hanningtons was, in fact, a pioneer of
in-store displays depicting realistic scenes - the kind
of creative marketing rarely seen outside of high-end
London stores.
Curiously enough, for many years Hanningtons
also had real on-site bedrooms for live-in staff. The
facilities and worker experience are said to have been
good: a social club, library, annual outings, aboveaverage
wages. There is another side, however. During
the latter half of the 19th century, staff are said to
have signed contracts that forbade former employees
from working within ten miles of the company in the
same line of business.
And for Hanningtons, the same line of business was
a pretty wide field.
The department store
began its life as a drapery,
haberdashery and hosiery
but grew extensively
throughout the 19th
century and beyond, to
incorporate many departments
in numerous
locations: from costume
to furniture, estate agent to undertaker.
The enterprise began as a single unit at 3 North
Street, founded by Smith Hannington in 1808. Hannington
was a wool and linen draper to George IV,
and he was issued a warrant from Queen Victoria to
bring back goods from France to sell. An inheritance
enabled him to expand the business and during
the 1860s, his numerous North Street shops were
architecturally unified into a single store.
Hanningtons stayed in the family until shortly after
Dorothy Hannington passed away in 1966. Even
after it was sold on, it continued to be run to similar
principles, which may have contributed to its downfall
at the turn of the millennium.
Highlights of its more recent past include the café,
serving up simple classics like scrambled eggs; the
Estée Lauder stand and, of course, the original
hosiery. “I used to get my Wolford tights when I was
18,” recalls Oriana Evans, “ready for raving with my
hot pants on at the Zap”. When Hanningtons closed
in 2001, the store had 70 departments and over 200
staff. It was part of the community - I doubt there
was a city resident that hadn’t, at some point, been
in the lift.
“The lift was magnificent,” recalls Wendy Bell,
another former customer. “I used to pop in, just to
experience it.” Chloë King
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