Waitrose
1904 Wallace Wyndham Waite, his brother-in-Law Arthur Edward Rose and David Taylor opened their shop in Acton.
1906 Taylor left the business. '...the Partnership heretofore subsisting between us the undersigned, Wallace Wyndham Waite, Arthur Edward Rose, and David Taylor, carrying on business as Grocers, Provision Merchants, and General Storekeepers, at 263, High street, Acton, under the style or firm of WAITE, ROSE, AND TAYLOR, has been dissolved by mutual consent as and from the thirty-first day of March, 1906, so far as regards the said David Taylor. All debts due to and owing by the said late firm will be received and paid by the said Wallace Wyndham Waite and Arthur Edward Rose...'[1]
1908 Named the company Waitrose after the two partners
1924 Arthur Edward Rose left the company
1937 Acquired by employee-owned retailer John Lewis Partnership. Consisted of ten shops and 160 employees.
1944 Purchased the South Essex grocery business Schofield and Martin, which had 12 shops
1955 Waitrose opened its first supermarket in Streatham with 2,500 square feet of selling space.
By the early 1970s there were 50 branches, some still small self service shops but more and more larger supermarkets.
This led to the construction of a new distribution centre at Bracknell enabling the business to grow at a much faster rate.
By 2004 the division had expanded to more than 200 shops including the acquisition of branches from other chains such as Morrisons, Somerfield and Woolworth.