John Spedan Lewis
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John Spedan Lewis (22 September 1885 - 21 February 1963). British businessman and founder of the John Lewis Partnership
The elder of two sons of John Lewis, who had opened the John Lewis department store on Oxford Street, London. Spedan Lewis joined the business at 19 and in 1914 assumed control his father's second shop Peter Jones in Sloane Square, London.
After assuming control of the Oxford Street store with his father's death in 1928, Spedan Lewis officially formed the John Lewis Partnership, and began the distributon of profits among its employees (known as "partners") in 1929, and completed the move towards employee-ownership in 1950, with the transfer of control to the employees.
Spedan Lewis resigned as chairman in 1955, and was known within the company from that point on as "The Founder". In retirement, he lived in Longstock village, Hampshire, until his death. In accordance with his wishes he was buried at sea.
[edit] Books by John Spedan Lewis
- Partnership for all by John Spedan Lewis, founder of the John Lewis partnership : a thirty-four year old experiment in industrial democracy (1948)
- Fairer shares : a possible advance in civilisation and perhaps the only alternative to communism (1954)
- Inflation's cause and cure (1958)
