On Saturday 26th April, we marked 75-years since John Spedan Lewis, the Partnership’s Founder, signed the Second Trust Settlement, which transferred ownership of the business to Partners, cementing the co-ownership model we know today.

The Settlement came into effect on 26 April 1950, 21 years after the First Trust Settlement, which saw Spedan transfer shares in John Lewis, Peter Jones and Odney to trustees. Any profits were to pass straight to the trustees for distribution among the employees, rather than to himself, and established the John Lewis Partnership. The Second Trust Settlement saw him transfer all his remaining shares and hand ultimate control to a new company, John Lewis Partnership Trust Limited, whose trustees include the Chairman, Deputy Chairman and the three Trustees of the Constitution.

“The Second Trust Settlement marks the moment that, at 21 years of age, and after facing into years of wartime difficulties, the Partnership experiment was entering maturity,” explains Imogen Livesley, Partnership Archivist. “The Settlement stands as an extraordinary gift to Partners and serves as Spedan’s swansong in his career-long endeavour to create Partnership for All.”

Today, Spedan’s vision is expressed by the phrase ‘We All Own It’, which defines the Partner Difference and what makes being a Partner in our co-owned business special.

Speaking to the Gazette (our weekly internal publication), Johnny Aisher, Trustee, alongside Trustees Baiju Naik and Matthew Street, added: “It is a wonderful testament to Spedan’s vision that his experiment has lasted so long and is increasingly inspiring other businesses to adopt similar co-ownership models. It’s also brilliant that, as with our Elected Directors, any Partner can stand to be a Trustee and share the privilege of protecting what we have so fortunately inherited for those hundreds of thousands of Partners who will come after us.”

The Partnership’s Second Trust Settlement: Five Facts

• The Second Trust Settlement was seven years in the making.

• It was signed in the boardroom at 35 Cavendish Square, London.

• Enid Lockett, who was instrumental in its creation, was an early female lawyer, and the first female barrister to be instructed in a murder case in the UK.

• Enid addressed Central Council, saying: “The Partnership now in essence and in fact belongs to all employed in it, and in return for this gift the Chairman has received not one penny. Its future success depends on all who work in it and thereby own it” (reported in the Gazette on 24 June 1950).

• It was calculated that the 12,000 Deferred Ordinary Shares that Spedan signed over were worth over £100,000, which is roughly around £3 million today.