On the morning of 19 June 1875, John Walsh opened a small baby linen and ladies' outfitting shop, at number 39 High Street, Sheffield.
[1] By 1888 the business had grown and had purchased shop units on both on the north and south sides of the High Street.
[1] The business had grown into a department store offering the sale of silks, dresses, millinery, ribbons, laces, flowers, feathers, toys, stationery, patent medicine and other goods as well as maintaining restaurant and writing rooms, and by 1906 had opened its own cabinet making factory in Pinfold Street.
[2] During the Second World War the store was destroyed by the Sheffield Blitz in 1940 and the business re-opened in former staff accommodation at The Mount and Fargate.
[4] The street-level part of the building has since been split three ways[5] into branches of Poundland, British Heart Foundation Electrical and Furnishings store and Sports Direct, with the landlords still to decide what they will do with the remaining upper floors.