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John Collier (clothing retailer)

clothing retailer

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 3, 2026
Entity authorityQ6226697 ↗
Source-derived summary

John Collier was a British chain of shops selling men's clothes.

Founded in Leeds, West Yorkshire in 1907 by Henry Price, the chain expanded to over 400 stores across the country, most of which traded under the Fifty Shilling Tailors brand.

In 1953, the company was sold to UDS, which renamed it John Collier. It continued to trade within the UDS empire until 1983 when UDS was sold to Hanson plc. In order to recoup the cost of the purchase Hanson sold on a number of UDS assets, including John Collier, for £47.5 million to a management buy-out team. In 1985 the company was sold on to the Burton Group, but the brand was discontinued and no longer exists today.

On 17 December 1975, the Prince of Wales visited for the formal opening of the head office extension. The huge complex in Kirkstall Road, Leeds, had two factories, No. 1 factory and No. 2 factory, in Evanston Avenue.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “John Collier (clothing retailer)” as clothing retailer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around John, Collier and clothing.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1907, 1953, 1983, 1985—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with John, Collier and clothing providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “John Collier (clothing retailer)”, the useful work is to connect “clothing retailer” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6226697. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1907, 1953, 1983 and 1985.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “John Collier (clothing retailer)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow John Collier (clothing retailer) primary sources, John Collier (clothing retailer) archive and John research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “John Collier (clothing retailer)”?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “John Collier (clothing retailer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.