The Boots Company, commercially known as Boots is a leading pharmacy chain in the United Kingdom, with outlets in most high streets throughout the country. Its parent company, Boots Group plc merged with Alliance UniChem plc on 31 July 2006 to become Alliance Boots.

History

Boots was established in 1849, by John Boot. In 1920, Jesse Boot sold the company to the American United Drug Company. However, deteriorating economic circumstances in North America saw Boots sold back into British hands in 1933 with the grandson of the founder, John Boot, who inherited the title Lord Trent from his father, at the head of the Company. In 1968 it acquired the 622-strong Timothy Whites and Taylors Ltd chain.

In 1982 the company opened a new manufacturing plant in Cramlington, Northumberland. In 1991 Boots started to diversify and bought Halfords, the bicycle and car parts business. In the early 1990's the Company also developed the Childrens World business but sold it in 1996 to Mothercare.

Boots branched into dentistry in 1998, with a number of stores offering this service. Boots sold its Do-It-All home furnishings chain to Focus in 1998. In 2002 Boots sold Halfords. Boots also made a venture into "Wellbeing" services offering customers treatments ranging from facials, homeopathy, and nutritional advice to laser eye surgery and Botox but these services were abandoned in 2003.

In late 2004 Boots also sold off the Lasix eye surgery services to Optical Express. Boots has also diversified into the research and manufacturing of drugs. It developed ibuprofen, a painkiller and in 1994 divested production to BASF, and in 2006 sold the Nurofen brand to Reckitt Benckiser.

Since 1936, there have been Boots stores outside the UK. Stores in countries as widely spread as New Zealand, Canada (see Pharma Plus) and France were all closed in the 1980s. A new roll-out started in 1997 with The Netherlands, Thailand, Taiwan and Japan but only Thailand survives, as an independent chain.

The Boots Estate

The Boots Estate features a range of listed buildings, notably D6 and D10 which are both Grade I, and D31, D36, and D90 which are Grade II. Staff enjoy a staff restaurant, coffee and snack shops, newsagent, a branch of Boots The Chemist, an Opticians branch and cash point situated within beautifully landscaped grounds.

The landscaped grounds include the Millennium Garden which features a herb garden (with some plants that Jesse used in his original herbal remedies) in the shape of a goose foot - harking back to Jesse's original shop on Goosegate in Nottingham United Kingdom.