In 1870 Queen Victoria decreed: ‘Let women be what God intended, a helpmate for man, but with totally different duties and vocations.’. However, there was one woman determined to flout such societal norms: Lady Florence Boot. Such was her ambition, in 1913, the Bystander magazine wrote that she ‘was the most wonderful example of the modern business woman’.
Born into a working class family in Jersey, Florence went on to shape Britain’s high street in a monumental way. While running Boots with her husband, she oversaw the introduction of toiletries, perfume and gifts onto shelves and transformed the shopping experience for British women.
![[The woman who transformed the high street: Florence Boot]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_232184492-b522.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
But how did a humble islander go on to become the head of a retail empire?. Florence, the third of four children, was born to bookseller William Rowe and his wife Margaret Agnes Campbell in 1863 and brought up in the airy and beautiful St Helier in Jersey, a stark contrast to the busy streets of Nottingham she’d go on to inhabit. Florence left school at 14 and worked with her father William at his island bookshop.
![[The woman who transformed the high street: Florence Boot]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_232184547-226f.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
‘I can never remember the time I was not in [a shop]’, Florence later recalled. Her earliest memories were of ‘toddling round the counters at my father’s side and learning from him that all labour was dignified..and that life in a shop could be and ought to be a high calling.’.
![[The woman who transformed the high street: Florence Boot]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_232184505-fbe7.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
In 1885, Florence’s gaze was drawn from the shelves to the pale face of a curious first-time shopper. Jesse Boot, owner of his family’s herbalist shop Boots, had ventured to Jersey after a bout of ill health. Florence was struck by the weary businessman, who was 13 years her senior, and the pair struck up a relationship.
