Plummer Roddis Ltd

This collection is made up of 6 series

Three firms of drapers (William Plummer of Hastings and Folkestone with his brother Arthur Plummer of Eastbourne, George Roddis of Hastings and Reginald Tyrrell of Bournemouth & Boscombe) amalgamated to form Plummer Roddis and Tyrrell Limited in 1896. Tyrrell left the partnership in 1898 to form his own business. Plummer Roddis Limited had stores in Hastings, Folkestone, Eastbourne, Bournemouth, Boscombe, Southampton, Brighton and Weymouth. Many of the stores became Debenhams from the 1970s. The Southampton store, occupying a corner plot on Above Bar Street and Commercial Road, was the oldest department store in Southampton. It opened in 1896 as Plummer, Roddis and Tyrrell, later becoming Plummer and Roddis when Tyrrell left the partnership. The original building was enlarged c.1928 but was destroyed in the Blitz of 1940. A new building opened in 1965 but closed in 1993; it is now the James Matthews Building, belonging to Southampton Solent University