Marks and Spencer Group plc is a major British multinational retailer with headquarters in Westminster, London that specialises in selling high quality clothing, home products and food products. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index, having been in the FTSE 100 Index from its creation until 2019. M&S was founded in 1884 by Thomas Spencer in Leeds. M&S has 959 stores across the U. K. including 615 that only sell food products. In 1998, the company became the first British retailer to make a pre-tax profit of over £1 billion, although subsequently it went into a sudden slump, which took the company and its stakeholders by surprise. In November 2009, it was announced that Marc Bolland of Morrisons, would take over as chief executive from executive chairman Stuart Rose in early 2010. In recent years, its clothing sales have fallen whilst food sales have increased after axing the St. Michael brand name for their own brand; the company began to sell branded goods like Kellogg's Corn Flakes in November 2008.

On 22 May 2018, it was confirmed. Whether more stores will close is yet to be confirmed; the company was founded by a partnership between Michael Marks, a Polish Jew born in Słonim, who had migrated to England in the early 1880s, Thomas Spencer, a cashier from the English market town of Skipton in North Yorkshire. On his arrival in England, Marks worked for a company in Leeds called Barran, which employed Jewish migrants. In 1884 he met Isaac Jowitt Dewhirst while looking for work. Dewhirst lent Marks £ 5, in Leeds. Dewhirst taught him a little English. Dewhirst's cashier was Tom Spencer, a bookkeeper, whose second wife, helped improve Marks's English. In 1894, when Marks acquired a permanent stall in the Leeds covered market, he invited Spencer to become his partner. In 1901 Marks moved to the Birkenhead open market. In 1903 the pair were allocated stall numbers 11 & 12 in the centre aisle, there they opened the famous Penny Bazaar; the company left Birkenhead Market on 24 February 1923. The next few years saw Michael Marks and Tom Spencer move the original Leeds Penny Bazaar to 20, Cheetham Hill Road and they opened market stalls in many locations around the North West of England.

Marks and Spencer, known colloquially as "Marks and Sparks", or "M&S", made its reputation in the early 20th century with a policy of only selling British-made goods It entered into long-term relationships with British manufacturers, sold clothes and food under the "St Michael" brand, introduced in 1928. The brand honours Michael Marks, it accepted the return of unwanted items, giving a full cash refund if the receipt was shown, no matter how long ago the product was purchased, unusual for the time. M&S staff raised £5,000 to pay for a Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft called The Marksman in 1941. By 1950 all goods were sold under the "St Michael" label. M&S lingerie, women's clothes and girls' school uniform were branded under the "St Margaret" label until the whole range of general merchandise became "St Michael". Simon Marks, son of Michael Marks, died after fifty-six years' service. Israel Sieff, the son-in-law of Michael Marks, took over as chairman and in 1968, John Salisse became the company Director.

A cautious international expansion began with the introduction of Asian food in 1974. M&S opened stores in continental Europe in Ireland four years later; the company put its main emphasis including a 1957 stocking size measuring system. For most of its history, it had a reputation for offering fair value for money; when this reputation began to waver, it encountered serious difficulties. Arguably, M&S has been an iconic retailer of'British Quality Goods'; the uncompromising attitude towards customer relations was summarised by the 1953 slogan: "The customer is always and right!"Energy efficiency was improved by the addition of thermostatically controlled refrigerators in 1963. M&S began selling Christmas cakes and Christmas puddings in 1958. In an effort to improve the quality of their Swiss rolls, they hired the food expert Nat Goldberg, who made a major improvement across their entire cake range, which had lost the public's favour a few years earlier; as a measure to improve food quality, food labelling was improved and "sell by dates" were phased in between 1970 and 1972.

Smoking was banned from all M&S shops in 1959. In 1972, Marcus Sieff became chairman, remaining in place until 1984, emphasising the importance of good staff relations to the tradition of the store, while extending staff benefits to areas such as restaurants and chiropody; the company expanded into Canada in 1973, at one point had forty-seven stores across Canada. Despite various efforts to improve its image, the chain was never able to move beyond its reputation there as a stodgy retailer, one that catered to senior citizens and expatriate Britons; the shops in Canada were smaller than British outlets, did not carry the same selection. In the late 1990s, further efforts were made to modernise them and expand the customer base. Unprofitable locations were closed. Nonetheless, the Canadian operations continued to lose money, the last 38 shops i

Incomes Data Services was a British research organisation dedicated to employment-related areas. It was acquired by Thomson Reuters in September 2005, it was dedicated to providing original research and training on pay benchmarking, pay settlements, HR policy and practice, pensions law and practice, employment law. IDS published numerous journals and books, had several subscription websites, undertook contract research. In December 2014 Thomson Reuters announced its decision to close the business from 31 March 2015, discontinuing the pay and HR products. At the same time it sold a licence to former employees to use the pay and data and software code to establish a new business called Incomes Data Research; the employment law products – namely IDS Employment Law Brief, IDS Employment Law Handbooks and IDS Employment Law Cases – continue to be published by Thomson Reuters and are available online through the Westlaw service. IDS was founded by David Layton in 1966 with the aim of providing accurate and timely information which could be put to practical use by all those involved in determining pay and related employment policies in Britain.

The company was the first to provide this information. As the employment law field became more complex IDS launched more information services covering new areas. IDS was acquired by Thomson owned Sweet & Maxwell in September 2005. Catalogue of the IDS archives, held at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwickwww.incomesdataresearch.co.uk

Black Oak Heritage Park is a park in Essex County, Canada, located along the boundary between Windsor and LaSalle. 1950-1970 - The Land was frequented by local hikers and was called Yawkey Bush. 1989 - Land was acquired by the City of Windsor from the Canadian Salt Company. Portions of the land with the most significant stand of trees was turned into Black Oak Heritage Park 2005-2015 - Entrances on the north and east side of the park are guarded by 24/7 Security teams. It's unclear why the security were posted, but its assumed they were posted on behalf of the Windsor Port Authority to prevent dumping until the adjacent north woodlot could be cleared to make way for the Gordie Howe International Bridge. Security teams were no longer present beginning in April 2015. 2014-2015 - Woodlot directly north of the park was cleared to make way for a new international bridge crossing. This area was once the Brighton Beach community; the clearing of the north part of the park has affected the local deer population and has exposed the north part of the park to more industrial pollution as there is no longer a buffer zone.

The park was once corn fields from indigenous peoples. It was once a rail yard with heavy use by the Canadian Salt Company, it was used by motocross and off roading trucks and cars for a time Black Oak Official Website