READING Museum is hosting an exhibition celebrating a century and a half of one of the town’s most iconic institutions.
The museum has welcomed a collection put together by Thomas Macey celebrating 150 years of Jacksons Department Store.
It will feature three fully-detailed models of the store as it was in 1904, built by Richard Ellis of Monks Gate Models, in the first public appearance of all three together.
The works were commissioned by Mr Macey, Historian of Jacksons Department Store, and are now on display at the Museum’s Welcome Gallery.
The exhibition opened this week in a special event attended by the Mayor of reading, Cllr Alice Mpofu-Coles, as well as members of the Jackson family.
Jacksons Department Store was founded by Edward Jackson in 1875, with Reading’s store as its flagship location.
It would expand to seven sites, and also expanded to become one of the most prominent suppliers of schoolwear in the town.
The flagship branch was notable for its use of pneumatic tubes, which were used to move cash and documents around the prominent building on Kings Road where it meets High Street in the town centre.
The store’s tube system was purportedly the last to be in working order, and was among the items sold off when the department store closed at the end of 2013.
Company archives still remain and are tended to by Mr Macey, including items dating back to the store’s inception in 1875.
The Jacksons of Reading at 150 exhibition is showing at Reading Museum until March 28 next year.
Full details are available via: readingmuseum.org.uk
