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The original firm was a chain of "penny bazaars", founded by a Russian-born Polish-Jewish immigrant, Michael Marks in Leeds with a loan of £5 from Issac Dewhirst, a wholesaler. The site of the first stall is still marked to this day, with a green and gold commemorative clock in Leeds Kirkgate Market. His first full store was opened in 1894 at Stretford Road, Hulme, in Manchester. Marks entered into a partnership with Tom Spencer who was working as Dewhirst cashier. Dewhirst went into manufacturing and remains the biggest supplier to M&S. M&S became a household name thanks to the efforts of Marks' son, Simon Marks, and his friend, Israel Sieff.

Marks & Spencer plc (known also as M&S, Your M&S and sometimes colloquially as Marks and Sparks, Marks or Marks's) is a British retailer, with several branches outside of the UK. It is one of the most widely recognised chain stores in the UK and is the largest clothing retailer in the UK by turnover (ASDA claimed first place by volume in 2004), as well as being a multi-billion pound food retailer. Most of its shops sell both of these categories. It also has a third line of business selling homewares such as bedlinen, but this is far smaller than the other two.

In 1998 it became the first British retailer to make a profit before tax of over £1 billion ^[1], though a few years later it plunged into a crisis which lasted for several years. As of 2006 it is growing again, and rapidly increasing profitability, but it is now less than one quarter of the size of the UK's largest and most profitable retailer, Tesco.

[edit] 20th century

M&S made its reputation in the 20th century on a policy of only selling British-made goods. It entered into long term relationships with British manufacturers, and sold the goods under the "St Michael" brand (trademark registered in 1928), which was used for both clothes and food. It also accepted the return of unwanted goods, giving a full cash refund if the receipt was shown no matter how long ago the product was purchased. It has now adopted a 90-day returns policy.

Unlike most of its rivals M&S resisted the lure of television advertising when ITV was launched in 1955, preferring to rely on its reputation to draw in customers. It was not until the mid-1990s that the first TV commercials for M&S clothing were broadcast.

The company put its main emphasis on quality, but for most of its history, it also had a reputation for offering fair value for money. When this reputation began to waver, it encountered serious difficulties. Arguably, M&S has historically been an iconic retailer of 'British Quality Goods.' Its business model required suppliers to commit to long term contracts solely to M&S. This approach often led to an over reliance by manufacturers on the portion of trade they did with M&S. Accordingly, when the M&S fashion buyers changed suppliers on some aspects of the company's retail clothing offering, manufacturers were left dangerously exposed — many became insolvent. This has resulted in a change of climate and no longer is a contract to supply M&S held up as the panacea it once was.

In 1988, the company acquired Brooks Brothers, an American clothing company and Kings Super Markets, a US food chain.