John Lewis Newcastle (formerly Bainbridge) in Newcastle upon Tyne is the world’s oldest Department Store. It is still known to many of its customers as Bainbridge, despite the name change to 'John Lewis'. The Newcastle institution dates back to 1838 when Emerson Muschamp Bainbridge, aged 21, went into partnership with William Alder Dunn and opened a draper’s and fashion in Market Street, Newcastle.

In terms of retailing history, one of the most significant facts about the Newcastle Bainbridge shop, is that as early as 1849 weekly takings were recorded by department, making it the earliest of all department stores. This ledger survives and is kept in the John Lewis archives. John Lewis bought the Bainbridge store in 1952.

John Lewis Newcastle retained its original name of Bainbridge until 2002, when the store was rebranded as John Lewis Newcastle.

Aristide Boucicaut founded Le Bon Marché in Paris in 1838, and by 1852 it offered a wide variety of goods in "departments" inside one building. Goods were sold at fixed prices, with guarantees that allowed exchanges and refunds. By the end of the 19th century, Georges Dufayel, a French credit merchant, had served up to three million customers and was affiliated with La Samaritaine, a large French department store established in 1870 by a former Bon Marché executive.

As Le Bon Marché evolved into a department store in the early 1850s, Delany's New Mart opened in 1853 in Dublin, Ireland on Sackville Street (now O'Connell Street). Unlike others, Delany's had not evolved gradually from a smaller shop on site. Acquired by the Clery family in the late 19th century, both the store and Imperial Hotel located in its upper floors were completely destroyed in the 1916 Easter Rising. However the store reopened in 1922, this time across numerous floors, as the famous Clerys department store that stands today, housed in a modern neoclassical building based on Selfridges of London.

David Jones (Australia) was started by David Jones, a Welsh merchant who met Hobart businessman Charles Appleton in London. Appleton had established a store in Sydney in 1825 and Jones subsequently established a partnership with Appleton, moved to Australia in 1835, and the Sydney store became known as Appleton & Jones. When the partnership was dissolved in 1838, Jones moved his business to premises on the corner of George Street and Barrack Lane, Sydney. Jones survived the depression of the 1840s, and by 1856 had retired from active management of the business. A few years later when the firm failed he returned to manage its affairs and in a few years had fully discharged all obligations to his creditors.

By 1887, the George Street store had been rebuilt and a mail order facility introduced. A factory was opened in Marlborough Street, Sydney to reduce reliance on imported goods.

David Jones also makes a claim to be the oldest department store in the world still trading under its original name.

By 1956, Lewis's had the largest stores in the provinces of the UK. It started in Liverpool in 1856. Lewis's experimented in new ways of advertising (such as flooding the basement of the Manchester store to create a mini Venice.)

Since 1856 it had stores in Manchester (1877), Liverpool (1856), Birmingham , Glasgow, Liverpool (The Bon Marche), Leeds, Hanley, London (Selfridges), Bristol and Leicester . The group's first and final store, in Liverpool, went into administration in 2007 and was purchased as a going concern by Vergo Retail Limited, enabling the store to continue trading under the Lewis's brand. In February 2010 Vergo Retail announced that this store would close by June but, following Vergo going into administration, the date of closure was announced as 29 May.