Whiteley was born in Yorkshire in the small village of Purston, situated between Wakefield and Pontefract. His father was a prosperous corn dealer, who had little interest in rearing his son, leaving William to be raised by an uncle. He left school at the age of 14, and started work at his uncle's farm. He would have liked to have been a veterinary surgeon or perhaps a jockey but his family had other ideas. In 1848 they started him on a seven-year apprenticeship with Harnew & Glover, the largest drapers in Wakefield. Whiteley took his new job seriously and received a 'severe drilling in the arts and mysteries of the trade.' In 1851 he paid his first visit to London to see the Great Exhibition. The exhibition fired his imagination, particularly the magnificent displays of manufactured goods. All that could be bought or sold was on display, but nothing was for sale. Whiteley had the idea that he could create a store as grand as the Crystal Palace where all these goods could be under one roof and it would make him the most important shopkeeper in the world. Wakefield, once the centre of the Yorkshire woollen trade, was in decline and Whiteley now wanted to be something more than a small towndraper. On completion of his apprenticeship he arrived in London with £10 in his pocket.
Business career
He took a job with R. Willey & Company in Ludgate Hill, and then Morrison & Dillon's to learn all aspects of the trade. Whiteley lived frugally. Not smoking or drinking he was able to save £700, enough to start his own business. He opened a Fancy Goods shop at 31 Westbourne Grove, Bayswater employing two girls to serve and a boy to run errands. Later one of the girls, Harriet Sarah Hall, became his wife. He began buying shops in Westbourne Grove, and by 1875 he owned an unbroken row of shopfronts. At the time when he opened his first store, Westbourne Grove was an upper middle-class area serving a wealthy clientele, but this area was declining in social status and popularity. Whiteley then began to develop more of a mass market appeal. He transformed his humble linen drapery into London's first department store by adding a meat and vegetable department and an Oriental department with cheap, imported goods from Japan and China. Rival retailers resented Whiteley's encroachment on their territory and in 1876, they staged an angry charivari by demonstrating in the streets and burning a "Guy" dressed in the traditional costume of a draper. Claiming that he could provide anything from a pin to an elephant, William Whiteley dubbed himself "The Universal Provider".
Murder
On 24 January 1907, Whiteley was shot dead at his shop by Horace George Rayner, aged 29, who claimed that he was Whiteley's illegitimate son. In his will Whiteley left £1 million. Some of the money was used to create Whiteley Village, a retirement village near Walton-on-Thames. Following his death, Whiteley's two sons carried on operating the business and opened a new shop in 1912. This was eventually sold to Harry Gordon Selfridge in 1927.
