A Victorian oak desk

James Shoolbred established a drapery business in the 1820s in Tottenham Court Road London. The firm continually expanded both their range of products and their size of premises throughout the nineteenth century. By the 1870s, the store was noted for its substantial and elegant displays of home furnishings. Around 1873, James Shoolbred entered the furniture trade and in the 1880s, the various physical additions to the site were rebuilt into a new department store. The business eventually closed in 1931.