In 2026, when most of us were busy arguing about toilet paper and sourdough starter, WHSmith quietly decided to flip the script. For a limited time, they changed the name on select storefronts to Tg Jones. Why? Because they could. And because they wanted to sell you stuff under a fake name without your permission.
The name Tg Jones isn’t some random bloke from accounting. It pays homage to Thomas Goodwin Jones, the nephew of WHSmith’s founder. The guy was a bit of a rebel, apparently, and the company decided to honor him by removing the “smith” from the brand and replacing it with a surname that sounds like a folk singer from Wales.
But here’s the kicker: they only changed the name on two stores. One in London, one in Manchester. That’s it. Imagine the chaos: commuters rushing to catch a train, seeing “Tg Jones,” and thinking they needed to buy a ticket to a pub in Cardiff instead of Paddington.
The Exaggerated Fallout
Social media, predictably, exploded. People posted photos captioned, “Is this a fever dream?” and “Has WHSmith been secretly replaced by a Welsh pirate?” One user claimed they walked in to buy a pen and left feeling like they’d accidentally joined a cargo cult. I’m not saying it caused global confusion, but I’m not saying it didn’t.
WH Smith: New sign goes up on Burnley high street store rebranded as TG
The switch was part of a “We’re Local” campaign to make the chain feel less like a corporate behemoth and more like your friendly neighborhood shop. The irony? They used the name of a dead Victorian man to do it. You can’t make this up. It’s like renaming Starbucks to “Legally Blonde Joe” for a week.
Let’s pause to appreciate the audacity. WHSmith has been around since 1792. It survived the Napoleonic Wars, the Titanic sinking, and the rise of online shopping without changing its name. But in 2026, it looked at itself in the mirror and thought, “You know what I need? A complete rebrand for two stores based on a guy who died in 1907.”
