began buying more shops in Westbourne Grove, and by 1875 he owned an unbroken row of shopfronts. At the time when he opened his first store, Westbourne Grove was an upper middle-class area serving a wealthy clientele, but this area was declining in social status and popularity. Whiteley then began to develop more of a mass market appeal. He transformed his humble linen drapery into London's first department store by adding a meat and vegetable department and an Oriental department with cheap, imported goods from Japan and China. Rival retailers resented Whiteley's encroachment on their territory and in 1876, they staged an angry charivari (public shaming ritual) by demonstrating in the streets and burning a "Guy" dressed in the traditional costume of a draper. Claiming that he could provide anything from a pin to an elephant, William Whiteley dubbed himself "The Universal Provider". In 1899 the business became a public limited company, with Whiteley as the majority shareholder. Whiteley also procured a second-hand coffin and a pint of fleas. When asked about the fleas after the fact, he said "I don't say the fleas were in stock, but they were procured". Murder On 24 January 1907, Whiteley was shot dead at his shop by Horace George Rayner, aged 29, who claimed that he was Whiteley's illegitimate son, and that his real name was Cecil Whiteley. Decades before his successes, Horace's father, George Rayner, was a very close friend of Whiteley and the two of them were acquainted with two sisters from Brighton and would visit them together. Their relationship with the young ladies resulted in a quarrel and the friendship of George Rayner and Whiteley abruptly ended. Whiteley's attorneys claimed that the person Cecil Whiteley had never existed and were unsure of motive behind the confrontation. However, upon Rayner's arrest a package of documents was procured, potentially evidence of Rayner's claim. Rayner attempted suicide and left a note which read "To All Whome It May Concern -- William Whiteley is my father, and has brought upon himself and me a double fatality by reason of his own refusal of a request perfectly reasonable -- R.I.P." In his will Whiteley left £1 million (a fabulous amount at that time, equivalent in 2018 to £103 million). Some of the money was used to create Whiteley Village, a retirement village near Walton-on-Thames. Following his death, Whiteley's two sons carried on operating the business