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Harrods is a British luxury department store located on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, London, England. It is owned by Harrods Ltd, a company currently owned by the state of Qatar via its sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority. The Harrods brand also applies to other enterprises undertaken by the Harrods group of companies, including Harrods Estates, Harrods Aviation and Air Harrods. Recognised as one of the world's leading department stores, it is visited by 15 million people per year.The store occupies a 5-acre (2 ha) site and has 330 departments covering 1.1 million sq ft (100,000 m2) of retail space. It is one of the largest and most famous department stores in the world.The Harrods motto is Omnia Omnibus Ubique, which is Latin for "all things for all people, everywhere". Several of its departments, including the Seasonal Christmas department, jewellery departments and the Food Halls, are well known. Harrods was also a founder of the International Association of Department Stores in 1928, which is still active today, and remained a member until 1935. Franck Chitham, Harrods' president at the time, was president of the Association in 1930. History In 1824, at the age of 25, Charles Henry Harrod established a business at 228 Borough High Street in Southwark. He ran this business, variously listed as a draper, mercer, and a haberdasher, until at least 1831. During 1825, the business was listed as 'Harrod and Wicking, Linen Drapers, Retail', but this partnership was dissolved at the end of that year. His first grocery business appears to be as 'Harrod & Co. Grocers' at 163 Upper Whitecross Street, Clerkenwell, E.C.1., in 1832. In 1834, in London's East End, he established a wholesale grocery in Stepney at 4 Cable Street with a special interest in tea. Attempting to capitalise on trade during the Great Exhibition of 1851 in nearby Hyde Park, in 1849 Harrod took over a small shop in the district of Brompton, on the site of the current store. Beginning in a single room employing two assistants and a messenger boy, Harrod's son Charles Digby Harrod built the business into a thriving retail operation selling medicines, perfumes, stationery, fruits and vegetables. Harrods rapidly expanded, acquired the adjoining buildings, and employed one hundred people by 1881.However, the store's booming fortunes were reversed in early December 1883, when it burnt to the ground. Remarkably, Charles Harrod fulfilled all of his commitments to his customers to make Christmas deliveries that year—and made a record profit in the process. In short order, a new building was built on the same site, and soon Harrods extended credit for the first time to its best customers, among them Oscar Wilde, Lillie Langtry, Ellen Terry, Charlie Chaplin, Noël Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, Sigmund Freud, A. A. Milne, and many members of the British Royal Family. Beatrix Potter frequented the store from the age of 17. First published in 1902, her children's book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, was soon on sale in Harrods, accompanied by the world's first licensed character, a Peter Rabbit soft toy (Peter and toys of other Potter characters appeared in Harrods catalogues from 1910). In 1921, Milne bought the 18-inch Alpha Farnell teddy bear from the store for his son Christopher Robin Milne who would name it Edward, then Winnie, becoming the basis for Winnie-the-Pooh. In December 1926, Agatha Christie, who visited Harrods as a girl, marvelled at the spectacle of the store's Christmas display. The store has also featured in fiction, for example Mr. Bean (played by Rowan Atkinson) visited Harrods to buy Christmas decorations in the 1992 Mr. Bean episode "Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean". A chance meeting in London with businessman, Edgar Cohen, eventually led to Charles Harrod selling his interest in the store for £120,000 (equivalent to £14,110,759 in 2021) via a stock market flotation in 1889. The new company was called Harrod's Stores Limited. Sir Alfred James Newton became chairman and Richard Burbidge managing director. Financier William Mendel was appointed to the board in 1891 and he raised funding for many of the business expansion plans. Richard Burbidge was succeeded in 1917 by his son Woodman Burbidge and he in turn by his son Richard in 1935.On 16 November 1898, Harrods debuted England's first "moving staircase" (escalator) in their Brompton Road stores; the device was actually a woven leather conveyor belt-like unit with a mahogany and "silver plate-glass" balustrade. Nervous customers were offered brandy at the top to revive them after their 'ordeal'. The department store was acquired by House of Fraser in 1959, which in turn was purchased by the Fayed brothers in 1985. In 1994, Harrods was moved out of the House of Fraser Group to remain a private company prior to the group's relisting on the London Stock Exchange. Qatar Holdings ownership Following denial that it was for sale, Harrods was sold to Qatar Holdings, the sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar in May 2010. A fortnight previously, chairman of Harrods since 1985, Mohamed Al-Fayed, had stated that "People approach us from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar. Fair enough. But I put two fingers up to them. It is not for sale. This is not Marks and Spencer or Sainsbury's. It is a special place that gives people pleasure. There is only one Mecca."The sale was concluded in the early hours of 8 May, when Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani came to London to finalise the deal, saying that the acquisition of Harrods would add "much value" to the investment portfolio of Qatar Holdings while his deputy, Hussain Ali Al-Abdulla, called it a "landmark transaction". A spokesman for Mohamed Al-Fayed said "in reaching the decision to retire, [Fayed] wished to ensure that the legacy and traditions that he has built up in Harrods would be continued."Al-Fayed later revealed in an interview that he decided to sell Harrods following the difficulty in getting his dividend approved by the trustee of the Harrods pension fund. Al-Fayed said "I'm here every day, I can't take my profit because I have to take a permission of those bloody idiots. I say is this right? Is this logic? Somebody like me? I run a business and I need to take the trustee's permission to take my profit." Al-Fayed was appointed honorary chairman of Harrods, a position he held for six months.With the previously operating Disney Cafe and Disney Store, the Disney at Harrods partnership added the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique salon on 25 November 2013 to those stores. Significant event timeline 1824: Charles Henry Harrod (1799–1885) starts his first business as a draper, at 228, Borough High Street, Southwark, London. 1834: Charles Henry Harrod founds a wholesale grocery in Stepney, East London. 1849: Harrods moves to the Knightsbridge area of London, near Hyde Park. 1861: Harrods undergoes a transformation when it was taken over by Harrod.... Discover the Ella Jade popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Ella Jade books.