It's the beginning of the end for an empire in Bradford today as the first batch of workers at a famous mail order firm work their final shift tomorrow.

Staff at Empire Stores, some with up to 30 years' service, will tomorrow leave the Canal Road offices for the last time, three months after the announcement by French-based owners Redcats UK that the historic business was to close .

The move means a total loss of around 350 office jobs in Bradford and 500 at a distribution centre near Wakefield.

A skeleton staff, including stock controllers, will remain working until August, after the current and last Empire Stores mail order catalogue expires.

The decline and fall of the once mighty retail giant that was Empire Stores, which introduced the first mail order catalogue in the mid-19th Century, was caused by technology and changing lifestyles and shopping habits.

Internet shopping, the rise of high street discount stores and a wider availability of credit and finance have taken their toll on the traditional catalogue-based mail order business which adopted its famous name 99 years ago.

Redcats will instead focus on its expanding web-based and direct home shopping brands such as La Redoute, Vertbaudet and Daxon.