M&S

Michael Marks, born into a Polish-Jewish family in Slonim, Belarus, moved to Leeds in 1882. Speaking only basic English, Marks opened a stall in the city’s Kirkgate Market and settled on a memorable marketing slogan: ‘Don’t ask the price, it’s a penny’.

Together with a Yorkshire-born cashier named Thomas Spencer, Marks opened ‘Penny Bazaars’ in towns and cities across the country. Michael Marks died in 1907, and the business passed to Marks’s son Simon.

All images © Marks and Spencer plc, courtesy M&S Company Archive