Lavells Newsagents Ltd

Lavells Newsagents Ltd was founded in 1924 as "Lavells Chocolatiers", a private company operating a small group of High Street outlets in central London specialising in confectionery.

The company was acquired by Herbert Mansfield in 1933 and steered through the difficult 1930s as a high class confectioners.

Lavells successfully survived the war years in spite of the difficulty of rationing. In 1948 it became a publicly quoted company and was subsequently acquired by Callard & Bowser, who in turn were acquired by Arthur Guinness & Company Limited in 1951.

The company then entered an era of rapid expansion and acquired many more shops including newsagents. These acquisitions were chains of shops and warehouses operated by Hancock & Co. in Manchester and Gordon's Limited in Leeds.

This expansion firmly established Lavells in the newsagency field and also involved them in the operation of sub-post offices.

It was at this time, that the company was opening prime High Street units and responsibility for the chain passed to the Guinness subsidiary Morison Son & Jones. As a result, the larger stores were branded as MORISON.

In 1977, Lavells and the pharmacy shops of Guinness were set up as a new company, Guinness Retail Holdings Limited (GRH) and all MORISON facias were re-branded LAVELLS FOR LEISURE.

The chain was going from strength-to-strength and in 1984 GRH purchased the much larger Martin the Newsagent plc.

Prior to the take-over of Martin, Lavells had 1,215 members of staff in 114 branches and 885 delivery staff.

In 1987, 66 of the largest Martin and Lavells stores were sold to rival retailer John Menzies and all of the smaller stores were converted to the Martin facia.

In the 1990s, John Menzies Retail was purchased by WHSmith, and as a result many WHSmith units were once Lavells.

The headquarters is at Lavells House, Hockliffe Street, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, LU7 8EZ.