The Lexicon Bookshop has celebrated its 80th anniversary, with a little help from Douglas Town Centre Manager Oliver Cheshire who presented proprietors David and Moira Ashworth with a birthday cake to mark the milestone event of one of the town’s best-known shops.
A slice of history: David and Moira Ashworth celebrate the Lexicon Bookshop's 80th anniversary with cake...and Oliver Cheshire
Mr Cheshire said: ‘The Lexicon Bookshop is to be applauded for adapting so successfully to changing customer practices and demands, as well as to advances in technology that are transforming the way we access consumer goods and services.
‘At a time when trading conditions are universally difficult, David and Moira Ashworth and their team at the Lexicon Bookshop are clearly bucking the trend by responding to what their customers want in terms of both product range and quality of service. I wish the Lexicon Bookshop every success for the future.’
Council Leader Councillor David Christian MBE JP said: ‘To have weathered the retailing storm so well for 80 years is most definitely cause for celebration and I commend the Lexicon Bookshop’s innovative and flexible approach to attracting business.
‘Similarly the Council, notably through its Town Centre Management operation, is committed to listening to retailers as well as to those who live, work and shop in Douglas, in order to create a year-round more vibrant, appealing and “investor-friendly” environment for the capital.
‘The results are already there to be seen in the main shopping area of Douglas as the Council continues to invest, in partnership with government, in town centre regeneration that reflects how the “high street” is becoming a leisure destination in its own right.
‘I congratulate the Lexicon Bookshop, not only for reaching such a landmark date in its history, but also for its long-standing contribution to a creating positive Douglas shopping experience.’
The Lexicon Bookshop: A Brief History (with grateful thanks to David Ashworth)
The Isle of Man’s Lexicon Bookshop was first opened in September 1936 as a fee-paying library by a Mr Hodges from Jersey and was initially known as the Lexicon Library.
The Library filled roughly half the area of the current shop and used to get packed due to its central Douglas location in Strand Street and the fact that visitors to the Isle of Man could borrow books for a small fee during their stay.
In those early days the property consisted of a Library, private house at the rear on Market Street, back room, kitchen and two upstairs rooms. Note that the Lexicon’s property is not as high as the surrounding buildings because it is reported that there was a fire in the 1920s that burnt down the upper floors which were never rebuilt.
In 1938, the Library was enlarged and the backroom (currently the upper level of the shop) was made available for more library books.
Joan Speedie worked in the Lexicon Library between 1936 and 1940 and reported receiving her first wage of five shillings (25pence) per week. As Strand Street in this time was packed with tourists, the hours were long and up to 7pm Monday-Thursday, 8pm Friday and 9pm Saturday and by the time all the returned library books were put back on the shelves, the staff didn’t usually finish for a further 45 minutes after closing time.
At this time, the Lexicon had as its neighbour Bert Ralph the tobacconist’s shop and just further along again was Bateson’s pork butchers whilst opposite were Town’s the jewellers, Quirk’s the bakers and Gore’s rock shop.
Business increased throughout the 1940s and 1950s and during that time the Lexicon also started to introduce books for sale in addition to the library loans. During this period the Lexicon also became one of the British Isles’ first chain stores with branches being opened in Oswestry, Llandudno, Wrexham, Burnley, Ashton-under-Lyme (Head Office), Jersey and Guernsey.
In 1959, Sally Murray who at the time lived in Jersey, was sent over to the Isle of Man for 13 weeks by Mr Hodges to find a new manager/manageress for his Isle of Man store. At the time in conjunction with huge visitor numbers to the island, business was booming and Sally was asked to stay on permanently.
By 1962 Mr Hodges was wanting to retire and the branches in Oswestry, Llandudno and Wrexham were closed. The Isle of Man branch was spared this fate when it was bought by Sally in 1962 and it remained under her control, along with four members of staff, until 1965 when it was sold to Olive Ranscombe who brought in a manager, Ken Rose, from Cambridge. During Olive’s tenure, book sales increased dramatically which was reflected by the Lexicon then becoming known as the Lexicon Bookshop rather than the Lexicon Library.
In April 1973, the thriving Lexicon Bookshop was sold to Mike Castle with Ken Rose staying on as the manager. This period saw huge increases in the demand for the written word and the Lexicon was very ahead of its time with the introduction of a computer-based ordering system to enable the business to be able to satisfy the island’s demand for special book orders.
The latest era of the Lexicon’s history came to conception on Tynwald Day 1992 when the current owners, David and Moira Ashworth, purchased the business. During their near quarter of a century at the helm, there has been a seismic shift in retailing and bookselling in particular. They have endured and successfully survived the widespread introduction of home computers leading to the massive rise of internet shopping and the growth of companies such as Amazon; this coupled with the arrival in the island of large UK bookselling chains and the spread of bookselling to all sorts of other non-book shop outlets. At times it has been a David and Goliath battle which has been won through a huge emphasis being placed on customer service and diversification into new product lines that complement the books and reflect the Lexicon being a local business serving the Manx community.
Behind the scenes, David, Moira, Irene and Katie work extremely hard fulfilling the book requirements of many of the island’s libraries, schools, government departments, medical and legal professions and the business community as a whole.
To help combat the increasingly competitive retail market place, especially in bookselling, the Lexicon has in recent times specialised in one of its key strengths, the market for local interest books and gifts including Rennie Mackintosh, Archibald Knox and Celtic inspired pieces. They have also originated many of their own Isle of Man gifts, souvenirs and sterling silver jewellery to enable them to stand out from the crowd with something unique to offer their customers.
So much more than just a bookshop, the Lexicon is your local independent retailer that has been proudly serving Mann since 1936.
