Wilko Ltd., formerly Wilkinson Cash Stores (1930–1941) and Wilkinson Hardware Stores (1941–2014), is a British high-street retail chain which sells homewares and household goods. The company was founded in Leicester by James Kemsey Wilkinson in 1930, and remains in the ownership of the founding family. The founder's son, Tony Wilkinson, joined the company as a branch manager in 1960 and succeeded his father as chairman in 1972, retiring in June 2005. He was succeeded by his daughter, Lisa Wilkinson, and his niece, Karin Swann. In 2014, Karin Swann sold her family's 50% holding in the business to Lisa Wilkinson. Product range The Wilko product range concentrates on household essentials, including homewares, textiles, DIY, cleaning products, health and beauty lines, stationery, confectionery, pet products and kitchen and bathroom goods. Wilko sells seasonal lines such as gardening products in the summer, as well as Christmas decorations and an expanded toys and games range from September to January. The first own-label products sold under the Wilko brand was paint in 1973, and as of 2020 there are over 14,000 own label Wilko products that account for over half of the annual sales. History The first Wilkinson store was opened by James Kemsey and his fiancee Mary Cooper at 151 Charnwood Street, Leicester, in 1930, and a second store was opened in Wigston Magna, near Leicester, in 1932. A total of nine branches had been opened by 1939. The Beaconsfield store can be seen in the background in the film Brief Encounter (1945). By the end of the 1980s, the Wilkinson chain had a total of 78 stores, increasing to over 150 by the time of the founder's death, in 1997. Wilkinson opened its first Scottish outlet in Castle Douglas in January 2009, in a store formerly occupied by The Co-operative Group. Stores were subsequently opened in Scotland that same year in Motherwell in July, in Irvine in November and in Clydebank in December. In 2010, the stores planned for Scotland to open were Hamilton, Kilmarnock, Greenock and Livingston. Wilkinson has a trend of taking over redundant former stores rather than building new ones, particularly in the West Midlands; examples have included the former Kwik Save store in Great Bridge (May 2008), the former Safeway store in Halesowen (November 2006) and the former Marks & Spencer store in Dudley (July 1991). The opening of a store in Dudley was an example of a trend