The House of Fraser Archive offers a fascinating glimpse into the history of one of Britain’s leading department stores. House of Fraser has a long and distinguished history. Founded in 1849 as a small drapery shop on the corner of Argyle Street and Buchanan Street in Glasgow, it expanded rapidly, acquiring some 200 different stores, and opening branches in many parts of the world.

 Our advent calendar not only highlights the Christmas delights found in the House of Fraser Archive, it also counts down to the launch of the new online catalogue on 25th December. This new catalogue includes full descriptions of all the items in the archive, histories of the House of Fraser and its many subsidiaries as well as biographies of the key people involved in the company, details of how the company functioned and many more exciting features: making browsing the collection easy and informative.

Our team have each picked some images to mark the days of Christmas and this year the images all come from the House of Fraser Archive.

Don’t forget to peek at our calendar each day of advent to see what festive images we found in the House of Fraser Archive, and come back at Christmas to enjoy the online catalogue!

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

From the Archive Services

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First published: 2 December 2011