WH Smith

WHSmith PLC

Type	Public
Traded as	:
Industry	Retail
Founded	London (1792; 225 years ago (1792))
Headquarters	Swindon, United Kingdom
Number of locations	1,351 (615 high street & 736 travel) (August 2015)
Key people	Henry Staunton (Chairman) Stephen Clarke (CEO)
Revenue	£1,178 million (2015)
Operating income	£124 million (2015)
Profit	£101 million (2015)
Number of employees	14,391 (November 2015)
Divisions	Modelzone Our Price (75%)
Website	www.whsmithplc.co.uk

WHSmith plc (also known as WHS or colloquially as Smith's, and formerly W. H. Smith & Son) is a British retailer which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and motorway service station shops selling books, stationery, magazines, newspapers and entertainment products. Its headquarters are in Swindon, Wiltshire. Smith's is listed on the and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. It was the first chain store company in the world, and was responsible for the creation of the ISBN book catalogue system.

In 1792, Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna established the business as a news vendor in Little Grosvenor Street, London. After their deaths, the business — valued in 1812 at £1,280 (equivalent to £76,886 in 2015) was taken over by their youngest son William Henry Smith, and in 1846 the firm became W. H. Smith & Son when his only son, also William Henry, became a partner. The firm took advantage of the railway boom by opening news-stands on railway stations, beginning with Euston in 1848. In 1850, the firm opened depots in Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. It also ran a circulating library service for a century, from 1860 to 1961. The younger W. H. Smith also used the success of the firm as a springboard into politics, becoming an MP in 1868 and serving as a minister in several Conservative governments.

After the death of W. H. Smith the younger, his widow was created Viscountess Hambleden in her own right; their son inherited the business from his father and the Viscountcy from his mother. After the death of the second Viscount in 1928, the business was reconstituted as a limited company, in which his son, the third Viscount, owned all the ordinary shares. On the death of the third Viscount in 1948, the death duties were so severe that a public holding company had to be formed and shares sold to W. H. Smith staff and the public. A younger brother of the third Viscount remained chairman until 1972, but the Smith family's control slipped away, and the last family member left the board in 1996.