Hall & Anderson. in B. Sarkaan (Ed.), Capital Book of Nostalgia, Calcutta, Capital Press

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"Hall & Anderson." In B. Sarkaan (ed.), Capital Book of Nostalgia, Calcutta, Capital Press, 1981, pp.16-18. HALL & ANDERSON

by CHRISTINE FUREDY

HE rise of Hall and Accounts and Anderson in Sales. being heralded as "the finest TAnderson as a 'departmental Their partnership started in 1894 in departmental store in India". It store'—the first retail enterprise a small shop, almost so to speak a had half a million square feet in Calcutta to call itself such— 'hole in the wall,' on Esplanade of floor space. illustrates some trends in the East. Using empty upturned For all its spaciousness, modern retail trade of the city at shipping crates as countertops, efficient organization of the turn of the century. Who in they sold imported suitings at departments and modernity, Calcutta does not know Hall and bargain prices. To save on rent and the shop was lit by gaslight. Anderson's, the now much- watchman's fees they slept in the Mr. Anderson believed partitioned and subdivided shop at night. Later when their gaslight was preferable to building at the corner of business improved they were able electric light for department Chowringhee and Park Street? to move into the old premises of stores, the softer light being, Older citizens remember the shop Whiteaway, Laidlaw and he argued, more flattering to from its heyday. The last Co. (a business they were to the merchandise. (The manager of the shop, Mr. compete with vigorously). tendency of some very Huggett, lives in Calcutta and is Next they purchased land and recently constructed the source of some of the buildings in the block on the department stores in North following details of the corner of Chowringhee and Park America to use indirect company's history. Street. This property was owned lighting nowadays suggests a Retail businesses in Calcutta by the sister of Sir David Ezra, the similar belief in the benefits were frequently founded by wealthy property and racehorse of soft light.) tradesmen who had come to owner. The Ezras, it is said, used The two partners developed Calcutta as young men to serve as to boast "we never sell, we only their business to this point of assistants in established shops. buy" but in this case Mrs. Esmond achievement by astute After having paid off their parted with some land and business methods, forward- passage money or bond and buildings. At first the store which looking practices and gained experience in the very Hall and Anderson built was more insistence on different modes of retail trading a conglomerate than a single shop. high quality merchandise. of British India, two men who The sides facing Chowringhee and They were innovators but did had worked together would put Park Street presented solid facades not change merely for the their savings into a partnership to but at the back was a compound sake of change, as the buy an existing business which containing several small buildings. gaslighting shows. They were was 'going cheap,' or to start a Gradually the business acquired very particular in choice of new one. This is how the famous more adjacent properties. Numbers stock. They were trend-setters shop of Hall and Anderson 8 and 10 Park Street were in certain aspects of the retail started. William Anderson and P. originally used for workshops. trade. For instance, they were N. Hall were both employed by This whole complex was the first to introduce Calcutta's largest drapery demolished in 1925 and the large kitchenware and ironmongery establishment, Francis, Harrison, building which we know today as a department. (These goods Hathaway and Co.—Hall in was opened in October 1925, had been the monopoly of the hardware shops like T. E. characteristic of several of the Jajodia in that year. Thompson and Co.) royal families! The company had As was the case with other Eu- Hall and Anderson were quick converted to a private limited ropean retail businesses in to exploit the value payable post company in 1913, when an Calcutta, they dealt only in which, besides allowing them to amendment of the Indian imported or custom made goods. trade over vast distances, also Companies Act made this Hall and Anderson, in their later greatly reduced the risks of unpaid possible. This again illustrates years, spent half the year in accounts of distant customers. their entrepreneurial spirit, as Europe selecting stock and came Their postal department grew to be the business was then able to to Calcutta only for the cool very large indeed. Orders came obtain bank loans for its season. The shop's ads insisted from all parts of India and from expansion. that it stocked "the very latest South-East Asia, Aden and Meso- The story of the decline of from the English and Continental potamia. Of course, the value pay- the shop is in microcosm the markets." able system applied only within story of many of the elite Among the custom-made India but simplification of retail businesses. After In- goods the furniture department overseas money-order procedures dependence they could no was the most important. Hall and aided external trade. To encourage longer import their special Anderson used good Burmese their distance trading, 100,000 lines and lost their teak and Indian mahogany. Much copies of the famous 600-page distinctiveness vis-a-vis of the initial making was catalogue known as 'Lal Kitab' smaller businesses. Then, subcontracted to Indian were sent out every October. their clientele evaporated or carpenters and cabinetmakers Hall and Anderson employed were forced to adopt more with the finishing being done in Indians but generally not as modest life-styles: the British the Hall and Anderson salesmen, although they stated to colonists had departed and the workshops. The shop carried a an employment committee in princes gradually lost their large range of carpets including 1918 that they purses. Indian carpets from Benares, were willing to train Bengalis and Today, in Calcutta not one Kashmir, Mirzapore and Ellora, Anglo-Indians. More usually, they of the old, large department as well as the usual Axminsters recruited young men from Britain. stores survives. Their role is and Wiltons. Mr. Huggett learned about Hall played by a congested but The claim that the shop could and Anderson while working in thriving New Market, the air- advise on the furnishing of 'any the carpet and furniture conditioned high-rise abode from a simple bungalow to department of a shop in complex on Theatre Road, a prince's palace' gives hint of the Wimbledon. He signed an agree- and the resilient smaller shops fact that, as was the case with all ment in 1923 to go out to Calcutta in the thoroughfares from the elite retail businesses, Hall and stay for at least three years. Burra Bazar to Park Street. and Anderson's most valuable He stayed for ten years before But the department store is a customers were the Indian even taking a holiday out of India. viable organization in large princely families. Mr. Huggett Mr. Huggett was in charge of the cities of the world and we remembers accounts being paid hardware and crockery department may yet see the foundation of in bags of silver rupees which until 1946 and became manager of a traditional department store had to be weighed under tight the store after the British partners in Calcutta. security. He had also to contend sold the business to Sahan Lai —0— with the tardiness in payment