James Howell was the son of a Pembrokeshire farmer. On 21 October 1865 he opened a shop in The Hayes, Cardiff, in a building called Stuart Hall. In August 1867 the drapery shop moved to St Mary Street. By 1892 he had a shop which extended from Trinity Street in the east, to St Mary Street in the west. The first part of the current store was built in the late-19th century, this part of the building includes an ornate facade that is visible on St Mary Street. In the 1920s a large and well-proportioned neoclassical extension was built up to the corner of St Mary Street and Heol-y-Cawl. A unique result of this extension was that Bethany Chapel, built on the site of an earlier chapel in 1865, was absorbed into the fabric of the building and its frontage was incorporated into the interior and is still visible in the store today, fronting onto the men's Aquascutum department.