International Tea Stores Logo

The International Tea Stores (formerly the International Tea Company Stores, founded in 1878) were an extensive chain, with over 200 shops by 1890 – in the forefront of supermarkets really, owned by a firm called Kearley & Tonge (tea importers and jam manufacturers). The chain went through several incarnations, ending up as part of the Somerfield supermarket group which, in turn, was consumed by the Co-op in 2009. Hudson Ewbanke Kearley (1856-1934) originally worked for Tetley Tea and then established his own grocery stores. He later became Chairman of the Port of London Authority and Minister for Food Control in the First World War. He became Baron Devonport in 1910 and Viscount Devonport in 1917. Hilaire Belloc wrote of him thus:

The grocer Hudson Kearley, he
When purchasing his barony
Considered first, we understand,
The title of Lord Sugarsand,
Or then again he might have been
Lord Underweight of Margarine:
But being of the nobler sort
He took the title Devonport.