Harry Gordon Selfridge

Harry Gordon Selfridge, Sr. (11 January 1858 – 8 May 1947) was an American retail magnate who founded the London-based department store Selfridges. The early years of his leadership led to his becoming one of the wealthiest and most respected retail magnates in the United Kingdom. He was known as "the Earl of Oxford Street". Born in Ripon, Wisconsin, and raised in Jackson, Michigan, Selfridge delivered newspapers and left school at 14 when he found work at a local bank. Selfridge eventually obtained a stock boy position at Marshall Field's department store in Chicago, where over the next 25 years, he rose to become a partner. In 1890 he married Rose Buckingham who was from a prominent Chicago family. In 1906 following a trip to London, Selfridge invested £400,000 to build a new department store in what was then the unfashionable western end of Oxford Street. Selfridges opened to the public on 15 March 1909, and Selfridge remained chairman until 1941.