shipping retail founded st. john s newfoundland canada 1811 founder benjamin bowring headquarters st. john s newfoundland and labrador canada key people charles t. bowring edward bowring henry bowring john bowring derrick bowring products historical shipowners fish and general merchants steamship agents present gifts and home decor website www.bowring.ca bowring brothers shop water street st. john s ca. 1892 bowring brothers limited or simply bowring is an operator of retail stores mostly focused on gifts and home decor throughout canada . bowring was formed in 1811 as a private company by benjamin bowring and his family who had just moved to st. john s newfoundland . benjamin bowring an english clockmaker set up shop in that business while his wife charlotte established a dry goods store which evolved into a large department store on water street . 1 flag of bowring brothers bowring brothers was later engaged as a shipowner fish and general merchant and steamship agent . from 1811 to date bowring brothers has been continuously citation needed engaged in newfoundland s commerce and at its peak the company had various operations on a global scale . after world war ii the company focused on its retail business including the department store in st. john s and a chain of over 100 gift shops in shopping malls across canada and the us . 1 2 the bowring family sold the chain to new owners in the late 1980s or early 1990s following which the st. john s store closed leaving bowring without any retail presence in the province for over a decade . in the early 2000s bowring began to shift its energy towards a series of home stores in power centres across canada currently numbering 34 including one in st. john s but continues to operate 31 mall stores in larger centres . fred benitah part owner and chief executive officer of the privately held home goods retailer benix & company inc. based in toronto ontario purchased the insolvent bowring brothers chain in october 2005 . fred benitah and his brother isaac benitah together privately controlled a number of retailers including fairweather international clothiers and benix & co. 3 after u.s. retailer bombay company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on september 20 2007 the u.s. business operations and inventory were acquired by a joint venture of gordon brothers retail partners llc and hilco merchant resources llc . on october 12 2007 with a plan to liquidate bombay s u.s. stores while bombay s canadian operations after inventory disposition were acquired by bowring and benix & company . see also edit bowring park st. john s a park built on land donated by the company bowring downtown centre an office complex redeveloped from the former bowring department store in st. john s references edit a b bowring about bowring derrick 2015 . down to bowring s a memoir . creative publishers . p. 133 . stauss marina . brothers bowring bid a sign of growing clout on retail scene . globeadvisor.com . retrieved 30 october 2012 . external links edit 1 2 3 retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title bowring brothers & oldid 742836049 categories retail companies of canadacompanies established in 1811privately held companies of canadahome decor retailerscompanies based in st. john s newfoundland and labradorbowring brothersdefunct shipping companies of canada1811 establishments in newfoundlandhidden categories pages using infobox company with unsupported parametersall articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from august 2008 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 6 october 2016 at 03 02 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view