Michael left his home in Slonim in 1882, when he was about 19 years old. He followed his older brother Barnet, who was the first of the Marks siblings to leave. The journey from Slonim was not easy. First, Michael made a long train journey from Slonim to the Russian-East Prussian border (now Germany) then travelled by ship from Hamburg to London’s docklands, with few possessions and little money. When Michael arrived in London, he’d expected to join Barnet there but discovered that Barnet had already left for America.
Michael had to make a decision at this point; whether to stay in London, save for a ticket to America, or find somewhere else in the UK to settle. He heard that there was demand in Leeds for unskilled tailors, including at a firm called Barrans. His father was a tailor, so he may have had some knowledge of the trade. He would have also been aware of the thriving Jewish community in Leeds, which may have influenced his decision to travel north.
Michael became successful; his chance meeting with Isaac Dewhirst (who trusted him with a significant loan shortly after meeting him) and his own personal traits contributed to this success.
We know that Michael was an innovator, finding creative solutions to problems. His first slogan was ‘Don’t ask the price, it’s a penny’, which was a quick way to communicate that everything on his stall was the same price. It also removed the need for complicated conversation and haggling with customers, which would have been difficult for him as his English was so limited.
We know that Michael and his family moved house a number of times. Hannah and Michael’s first home together was in the Leylands area of Leeds. It was described as “…the centre of a vibrant bustling, immigrant community”. However, there was a growing number of incidents of anti-Semitic abuse in the Leylands. Jewish people were harassed and abused in the streets, their homes were vandalised, and the synagogues were desecrated. For the immigrants, such hostility may have brought back memories of the violence they had only recently left behind in Eastern Europe. This was one of the reasons that the family left Leeds and made the move to Wigan.
In 1897 Michael applied for and received British nationality through an official process called ‘naturalisation’. Michael’s naturalisation application gives his occupation as ‘general dealer’ and is signed by Michael in English. Michael’s business partner Thomas Spencer endorsed the application. In support of his application, the mayor of Wigan wrote that Michael was ‘reported to have been respectable and of good character whilst resident in Wigan’, while the office of the Chief Constable in Manchester said that Michael was ‘a respectable man and his statements are true’.
Michael’s application showed his gratitude to the country that had granted him shelter and the opportunity to set up a home and a business.
Michael’s older brother, Ephraim, migrated to the UK in 1890 and set up his own small chain of Penny Bazaar shops, but was not as successful as Michael. We don’t have a complete list of where Ephraim Marks had his Penny Bazaars, but we know that as well as shops in Oldham and Stockport he also had shops in Dundee (Scotland) and in Dublin (Ireland). By 1918 Ephraim’s business was doing badly and he closed or sold his shops; this included selling some shops to Marks and Spencer.
From the evidence, it seems that Michael and Hannah were keen for their children to have a different experience from their own. Simon (their eldest child) attended Manchester Grammar School. To Michael, the school represented educational opportunities for his son that had not been available to him as a boy in Russia.
A PDF of Michael Mark's naturalisation papers from 1897 can be downloaded from the Resources Section.
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Glossary
- Desecrated - to damage or show no respect towards something holy or very much respected.