2-970-140 - /Heritage Images

Improved London Street Architecture: No. 184, Strand, 1856. 'The structure lately erected, from the designs of Mr. H. R. Abraham, occupies the site of...old Arundel House...The names W. H. Smith and Son appear on the literary refreshment-stalls at most of the principal railway stations...but this branch of their business...form[s] but an unimportant branch of the trade carried on by the firm. The building may be regarded as a sort of newspaper clearing-house...Messrs. Smith and Son do not act as the arms and legs of the other London agents with regard to the evening or weekly papers, as the same degree of exertion is not required to ensure their dispatch by post or railway as with the morning papers; but the requisitions of their country correspondents make their office a busy scene in the afternoons, particularly on Fridays, when the Illustrated London News, and others of the weekly papers, are issued for dispatch to the country'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.