It will be no surprise to regular readers to hear that I have been using the old editions of Sheppard’s Directory of Secondhand Book Dealers to work out how many bookshops there were in the UK over the years, and I think I can now propose a historical profile.
The short answer is that there were 500-600 book shops in the mid-1950s, running through broadly to the Sixties and Seventies, though nudging upwards. In the Eighties a significant increase began, running through to the end of the Nineties when there were about 950. We know there were about 1,100 in the first decade of this century, and there are about 1,000 (of all sorts) now. The details are as follows.
There were fewer than one hundred during the 19th century. The editor of Sheppard’s 1955-56 guide states that 31 second-hand bookshops “are recorded as having been established before 1850; 1850-59 another 17; 1860-69, 9; 1870-79, 15; 1880-89, 19; 1890-99, 17.”
This was followed by an accelerating increase in the first half of the twentieth century. His tally continues: 1900-09, 22; 1910-19, 25; 1920-29, 61; 1930-39, 68; 1940-49, 96; and since 1950, 42. I make that a cumulative total of 422 (assuming these are net figures).
For the year 1955 the editor provides an exact figure: his directory lists 523 shop premises (some also stock other things, eg stationery, prints, stamps). A further 101 dealers had stocks viewable by appointment. The rest only did postal business, or details were unavailable. Overall, the directory listed 987 dealers of all types.
In the 1964-66 edition, the editor says that how many dealers (ie, not just shops) there are can only be guessed. There are over one thousand in this directory, he says, but another hundred or so had to be held over for various reasons, and ‘there may well be a hundred more making, say, twelve hundred and fifty in all.’
Of these, ‘many dealers have large and handsome premises, but the far greater number have more modest shops in the less expensive districts of their town, while hundreds run postal businesses’ from a spare room, ‘or from overcrowded little stockrooms where the trade and the general public are admitted only by appointment’. He does not give a total for shop premises only: if the proportion was similar to the Fifties, there were maybe c.625 shops.
The same phrasing as to numbers is used in the 1973-75 edition of the directory, suggesting the editor thought the total was fairly stable.
We have another reasonably reliable number for July 1984, when Driff’s exhaustive guide numbers 942. Note that this figure derives from a different method to Sheppard. It is not based on information from dealers, but on an assiduous field survey by a customer (a professional book runner). For reasons why this is a good figure you really need to read the guide itself, and its editor’s entertaining account of his relentless quest after every remote rumour of a shop. There are similar numbers in the 1992-93 and 1995 guides.
There were 2,500 dealers of all kinds (including postal and by appointment) listed in Sheppard’s 1989-90 guide, twice as many as in 1964-66, and 2,638 in the 1999 guide. Figures for shops only are again not given, but I estimate, based on sampling, that there were about 960 in the 1999 directory, broadly consistent with the Driff figures.
Numbers from the late 1990s and early 2000s were affected by the expansion of charity bookshops (ie full scale bookshops run by charities). Oxfam had opened sixty by 2003, fifteen more were announced in 2004, and by 2009 it had 130. Other charities have followed suit, such as Amnesty, Age UK, The National Trust.
We have another reliable figure, from The Book Guide, originally run by Inprint Bookshop, of Stroud, Gloucestershire, whose information comes from both readers and booksellers. This began in 2001, picking up where Driff’s Guide left off. On 21 August 2017, this reported: “We list 1,217 bookshops in the UK and Ireland, with only 287 of them run by charities.” Of these, about 30 are in the Republic of Ireland, so the UK total was therefore 1,187. This figure was similar the following year, with 1,183 in 2018, and there was a net increase of 9 in 2019, making 1,192.
This invaluable guide has kindly been carried on by volunteers, supported by readers’ reports, and in June 2022 there were 1,021 listings, a significant drop. In the year from then to June 2023 I count a further 54 have been removed (due to closure or change in use), while about 35 have opened or been discovered, a net loss of 19. The proportion of charity bookshops, however, has probably increased since the 2017 figure.
A more recent development is in community bookshops, run not by national charities, but for local good causes such as hospices. Another recent trend is for hybrids, such as book cafes, old and new books together, vintage and retro shops with a niche stock of books and so on.
We can therefore see that the number of second-hand bookshops increased in a steady progress from the Nineteen Fifties, reaching a high plateau probably somewhere around the first decade or so of this century, and is now slightly declining. These numbers have only been sustained, however, by the rise in charity bookshops: there are fewer old style traditional bookshops. Even so, there remain plenty of places of various kinds where second-hand books may be found.
(Mark Valentine)
A really excellent analysis Mark. I'd only suggest that the 19th century figures are far too low. I think Sheppards are noting those shops that they list that have these dates of establishment. In the 29th c most bookshops sold both new and old books. I'll try and check general directories later.
ReplyDelete