In the mid twentieth century, Broad Street on Lagos Island stood at the centre of formal commerce in the city. Banks, shipping firms, trading houses, insurance offices, and colonial administrative buildings clustered along the road, turning it into one of the busiest economic corridors in Nigeria. For workers, traders, and office staff, Broad Street was where salaries were earned, goods were imported, and commercial life unfolded day after day.
Among the retail establishments operating along this important street was Kingsway Store, a department store managed by the United Africa Company, commonly known as UAC. Kingsway reflected a style of retail that was becoming familiar in colonial cities, structured shopping spaces, fixed prices, and goods displayed behind counters rather than sold through open bargaining.
Kingsway and the United Africa Company
Kingsway operated within UAC’s broader commercial system in West Africa. By the middle of the twentieth century, UAC’s activities in the region included produce trading, import distribution, warehousing, and retail operations in major urban centres. Kingsway formed part of this retail network, supplying imported consumer goods to customers who preferred department store shopping.
This retail model did not replace Lagos markets. Open markets, street traders, and specialist sellers remained central to everyday life and household supply. Kingsway existed alongside these systems, offering a different type of shopping experience to a particular group of urban consumers, especially office workers and professionals whose daily routines were tied to Broad Street and nearby commercial offices.
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Inside the Store, What the Photographs Reveal
Some of the clearest impressions of Kingsway’s interior come from archival photographs taken during the colonial period. Images attributed to E. H. Duckworth, preserved in the Herskovits Library of African Studies, show customers standing at counters inside the store’s menswear section.
These images capture ordinary moments of retail life. Customers wait at the counter while attendants present folded clothing behind glass displays. The space is orderly and functional, designed for service rather than spectacle. The photographs show how department store shopping worked in practice, not as an event, but as a routine part of urban life.
Menswear, Clothing, and Professional Life
The menswear counter held particular importance in Lagos at the time. European style clothing, including suits, shirts, and formal shoes, was widely worn by clerks, civil servants, and professionals whose work involved regular contact with colonial administration, banks, and trading firms. For many men, such clothing was linked to workplace expectations and public presentation.
Kingsway stocked imported garments and textiles that suited this demand. Customers could inspect ready made clothing or select materials that supported tailoring. These choices existed alongside indigenous forms of dress, which remained culturally significant and widely worn. Clothing in Lagos was situational, shaped by work, occasion, and personal preference rather than a single standard.
Department Store Shopping and Urban Change
Department store retail introduced a shopping pattern that felt distinct from open markets. Fixed prices replaced bargaining, counters organised customer flow, and goods were grouped by category within a single building. For some Lagos residents, this format matched the rhythms of office work and wage employment that were expanding in the city.
Kingsway offered convenience and predictability to those who valued it, while markets continued to serve the majority of daily needs across Lagos. The coexistence of these systems reflects the city’s adaptability, with different forms of trade meeting different purposes without cancelling one another out.
Kingsway’s Place in Lagos Commerce
Kingsway should be understood as one part of a wider commercial landscape. Lagos remained a city defined by markets, traders, and long established African commercial networks. Kingsway did not define Lagos commerce on its own. Instead, it illustrates how imported retail models operated within an already complex trading city.
Its location on Broad Street placed it close to offices, banks, and shipping firms, making it accessible to workers moving through the commercial centre. In that sense, Kingsway’s significance lies in how it fitted into the daily movement of the city rather than in any claim to dominance.
From Late Colonial Years to Independence
Nigeria gained independence in 1960, and Kingsway continued operating into the post independence period. Over time, economic changes, the expansion of indigenous enterprise, and shifts in retail distribution altered the commercial environment. As Lagos grew and diversified, the prominence of colonial era department store brands gradually declined.
Biographical records show that Tony Colman worked for UAC in Nigeria during the 1960s, before his later political career in Britain. His employment reflects the movement of British staff through major trading firms during that period. Kingsway’s later years are best understood as part of a broader transition in Nigerian commerce rather than as a single dramatic ending.
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Why Kingsway Still Matters
Kingsway remains important because it brings colonial era commerce down to a human scale. It shows how people shopped, dressed for work, and moved through formal retail spaces as part of everyday life. The store’s counters, displays, and routines offer a window into a Lagos that was already professional, busy, and commercially confident.
The photographs associated with Kingsway are not just images of a vanished store. They are records of a working city, capturing how Lagos residents engaged with multiple systems of trade at once, markets, offices, shipping houses, and department stores. Through Kingsway, we see Lagos not as a passive colonial outpost, but as an active commercial city shaping its own modern life.
Author’s Note
Kingsway’s story shows that Lagos history is built from ordinary routines, where people worked, dressed, waited at counters, and made choices that suited their lives. In those everyday moments, the city’s commercial strength and adaptability become clear.
References
Herskovits Library of African Studies, Photographic Collections
United Africa Company Archives, Corporate History and West African Operations
Toyin Falola, The History of Nigeria, Greenwood Press
