From Market to Stock Market: The Dunelm Story

From Market to Stock Market is the astonishing story of Bill Adderley who, from the humblest of beginnings, created one of the most successful retail chains in Britain today. Dunelm, Britain’s leading homeware group, has over 180 superstores and a market value on the London Stock Exchange of 2.2 billion. The son of poor Irish immigrants, Bill grew up in a council house in Leeds, sharing a bed with his three brothers. He got his first job at fifteen, working as a ’Saturday Boy’ at the local Woolworth, and went on to become a Woolworth manager when he was twenty-one. In the 1970s however Woolworth’s went into steep decline and Bill left to start up his own business, selling seconds and reject goods on a stall in Leicester market. His first coup was a truckload of reject slippers, followed by reject Marks & Spencer curtains from which he made enough money to start a company that grew into the Dunelm homeware furnishings group. In 2006, Dunelm Group Plc listed on the stock market, since when the shares have increased six-fold. At the age of fifty-eight, Bill passed over the executive reins to his son Will and now lives a quiet life near Leicester with his wife Jean.

Bill Adderley was born in Leeds in 1948, the third child in a family of six. Born in a council house in Leeds, Bill left school with four O-Levels when he was sixteen and worked for F.W. Woolworth for the next fourteen years. In 1979, with the support of his wife Jean, he set up his own market stall in Leicester, selling seconds. He was thirty-three when he founded the Dunelm homeware retailing group. In 2022, the Adderley family featured in the Sunday Times Rich List at an estimated £1.8 billion, putting them in the top 100. Bill and Jean have two sons, (Sir) Will and Jonathan, and four grandchildren.