Woolworths Group

Founding and early growth (1924–1957)

Woolworths opened its first store, the Woolworths Stupendous Bargain Basement, in the old Imperial Arcade Pitt Street, Sydney, where Westfield Sydney now stands, on 5 December 1924. Woolworths Ltd's nominal capital was £A185,000, and although 85,000 shares were offered to the public, only 81,707 shares were subscribed for by 619 people, including the five founders – Percy Christmas, Stanley Chatterton, Cecil Scott Waine, George Creed and Ernest Williams. One of the founding investors was Preston Lanchester Gowing, the then chairman of the department store chain Gowings.

The name on the draft prospectus drawn up by Cecil Scott Waine was "Walworth's Bazaar" – a play on the name of F.W. Woolworth, the owner of the Woolworth's chain in the United States and United Kingdom. According to Ernest Robert Williams, Percy Christmas dared him to register the name Woolworths instead, which he succeeded in doing after finding out the name was available for use in New South Wales.

The new Woolworths store was the first variety store in the world to use cash registers that print receipts for customers.

During the late 1920s the company grew, with a second store in Sydney and stores in Brisbane, Perth and Wellington in New Zealand. The company grew further in the 1930s, despite the depression, until by the end of 1933 it had 23 stores. In 1933 the first store in Melbourne was opened and on 1 April 1936 the company bought eight stores from Edments Ltd and opened its first store in Adelaide. Following the opening of the Hobart store in 1940, Woolworths had a store in every state in Australia.

World War II slowed the growth of the company, with the Australian and United States militaries commandeering Woolworths' warehouses in Sydney for storage. After the war expansion was once again rapid and in 1955 Woolworths opened its 200th store, in the Civic Centre in Canberra.