Co-operative Graphic Novel

As it is International Year of Co-operatives a graphic novel has been, or is about to be released with the title being "The Co-operative Revolution". I've just acquired it, so am still reading it. The thing with graphic novels is you want to dwell over the pages and take in the artwork. Try to spot any quirky little doodles in the frames. "This graphic novel from master artist Polyp illustrates the history and enduring appeal of the co-operative movement" says the press release. It does.

It has four chapters - Yesterday, Today, Always and Tomorrow. Plus you get a potted timeline of events at the end. What you need to know - it starts with the Rochdale Pioneers, it goes into spaceships to Mars. It has 80 pages in colour. Full price £5.99. Published by New Internationalist on behalf of The Co-operative Group. It's the work of Polyp, a charming and amusing chap with a distinctive drawing style. He lives in Manchester. I'm going to enjoy finishing it, just need to make some quiet reading time.

ISBN is 978178026082. More Info here.

John Shillito Medal

When the CWS celebrated its Golden Jubilee, that's 50 years from 1863 to 1913, it issued a medal which is featured here.

It's a relief portrait of John Shillito who was the President of the Co-operative Wholesale Society from 1895 to 1915. It was distributed to each delegate at the CWS shareholders’ meetings in 1913(there would be over 3,000 attending them) and to each of the 21,000 employees of the CWS. There was additional distribution to officials in the retail co-operative societies, so that the total number distributed in 1913 would be around 25,000. The medal is gold colour on bronze and weighs about 19 grams.

On the reverse side there is the logo of the CWS, a wheatsheaf flanked by a t-handle spade and a sickle. The motto is "Labor and Wait". Note the American spelling. There is a story about this logo and motto, and I need to find out more.

At the same time a large casket was issued which featured on it leading figures in the co-operative movement and illustrations of CWS premises. In the casket were samples of a range of CWS products.

John Sillito from Halifax, was then the grand old man of co-operation, he would be 81. When in his 70's he presided at the Co-op Congress at the Corn Exchange, Doncaster in 1903. He also entertained Captain Scott prior to his Antarctic Expedition. Born 19th January 1832. Died 12th February 1915 aged 83. Lived at 4 Park View, Hopwood Lane, Halifax in the year the medal was issued.

You can read about John Sillito's activities in "The Story of the CWS : Jubilee History 1913" it's at Archive.org - link.

Early Manchester Co-operatives

What could have been on the mind of those co-operators starting with a shop on Great Ancoats Street back in 1859 was the number previous ventures in collective enterprise that had struggled in their trading.

We know about these early co-operative stores through the writings of J.M. Ludlow (John Malcolm) who made a tour of Lancashire and Yorkshire in 1850. He was a barrister in London and a central figure in the Christian Socialists. These chaps were inspired by the co-operative producers in France and the Chartists and the most noted of them was Charles Kingsley, who wrote under the pen name of Parson's Lot and became famous with a books called "The Water Babies" and "Alton Locke".

Though J.M.Ludlow favoured producer co-operatives over consumer co-operatives his reports tracked down several Societies retailing in Manchester and Salford. G.D.H. Cole writing "The Century of Co-operation" in 1944 is a touch scathing about him thinking co-operative principles were in a few people making hats together rather than members owning shops and paying dividend.

• Jersey Street Co-Operative Society, three stores and a bakery in Ancoats.
• Garrett Road Industrial, a co-operative store in Miles Platting
• Hudson Street, Salford, a co-operative store
• Harpurhey, a new co-op society
• Dyers' Trade Union, two stores, though he disapproved, holding them devoid of true co-operative principles
• Central Co-operative Agency, a branch at 13 Swan Street.
• Garden Lane, Salford, a co-op store and manufacturing with looms for some of its members.

There were others. The historian today trawls through online digitized newspapers looking for entries and finds a Chartist Co-operative Store in Hulme, or a case of embezzlement at the Flixton Co-operative and that's a small village west of Manchester near the River Irwell. The young Ludlow would be making enquiries in the terraced house districts of industrial Manchester for a small business run on co-operative principles.

In 1851 there was a Co-operative Conference in Bury in the April with 44 north of England co-ops attending, with 80 delegates, most of them from stores rather than workshops. Later in September there was a meeting of Associative Labour in Manchester with trade unionists, co-operators and sympathisers. The Rochdale Pioneers attended both meetings.

Small organisations only get their history written about if they survive long enough and grow big enough. Who knows anything about the Manchester Equitable Pioneers Co-operative attending the Bury conference? What happened to the Jersey Street Co-operative? Then the oldest in Manchester said their delegate Mr. Knight. "It started by offering 10s. shares (50p) with about 80 or 90 taken up. A capital of £400 and business of £120 weekly."

The success of the Manchester & Salford Equitable Co-op wasn't assured when they started in 1859 but would have learnt that lack of capital and not attracting members would mean ultimate demise.

Photograph courtsey of Manchester Libraries Image Collection. It is Jersey Street in 1967, m10166, and looks like it hadn't changed since the start of the century. Don't know which building on Jersey Street was occupied by a co-operative store.

Arbitrators 1859

When the Manchester & Salford Equitable Co-Operative was founded in 1859 they appointed a body of men called arbitrators. Don't know if they ever did any arbitration. But they were invited to the members' meetings and would have lent patronage to a newly founded commercial venture. Interesting five names from radical, non-conformist chapels all well known to the members of the Manchester and Salford co-operators. We are reading articulate middle class, mostly teetotal and vegetarians. They have an interest in democratic reform, free libraries and improvements for the working classes. Then there is Abel Heywood who was buried in the grounds of his home and has his statue in Albert Square.....

Samuel Pope, barrister, aged 33. Secretary of the UK Alliance for the Suppression of the Traffic in all Intoxicating Liquors. This was a prohibitionist organisation and he stood on this ticket for Stoke 1857 and as Liberal in Bolton in 1859. Didn't win but was re-elected Councillor for Seedley Ward, Salford in November 1859. Henry Dow, one of the instigators of the "Maine Law" which made that state dry (alcohol banned) visited England in April 1857. He greeted him on arrival in Liverpool.

Rev. Thomas Gardner Lee, pastor, aged 59. His church was the New Windsor Chapel (Congregationalist), Cross Lane, Salford. He'd been preaching there since 1843. Responsible for publishing the second edition of Henry 'Box' Brown's Narrative in 1851  It describes Mr. Brown's escape from slavery to Philadelphia in 1849 by being posted in a wooden crate. Supporter of the Union & Emancipation Society in Manchester, the anti-slavery campaign which had two local co-operators J.C.Edwards and Edward Owen Greening as Secretaries.

William Harvey, Mayor of Salford, aged 70. President of the Vegetarian Society, it started in Salford. Active in the Bible Christian Church, Salford. Founder member of UK Alliance for the Suppression of the Traffic in all Intoxicating Liquors, the first meeting was at his house in Acton Square, Salford. Vice President  of the Anti-Tobacco Society. Campaigner for Parliamentary Reform.





Abel Heywood, publisher, bookseller and Mayor of Manchester. Aged 49, and best described as Mr. Manchester of the 19th Century. We know of his radical politics, a former Chartist and three convictions for defying the tax on knowledge - selling newspapers without stamp duty. More to come on Alderman Heywood and his support for co-operatives and connections with the M&SE Co-Op.

James Gaskill, aged 58, Bible Christian minister chapel at Queen Street, Hulme. Lived at 340 Stretford New Road. His occupation is listed as a Cotton Spinner, possibly a spinning business, but when elected to the Chorlton Board of Guardians he is described as a schoolmaster. Well he did this later with educational institutes set up by the Bible Christian Church. A director of the Manchester Mechanics' Institute. Also a teetotaler and vegetarian. Years earlier he presented a silver star and chain to Henry Anderton the teetotal poet in a ceremony in Manchester.

Thanks to Andrew Simpson at Chorltonhistory for help with this research. References to "A Guiltless Feast" by Derek Antrobus 1997 which is a good account of the Salford Bible Christian Church and the rise of the modern vegetarian movement.

Origins of M&S

The story of a meeting by the young men of the Roby Brotherhood on Christmas Day 1858 is given as the start of the Manchester & Salford Equitable Co-operative. I quite like this artists impression of one of their meeting made 100 years later. But deep down you know it paints a myth of how it was.

The chaps were mostly in their late twenties and early thirties. Working men, young dads, who attended the Roby Chapel, a noted Congregationalist Church and Sunday School in Manchester founded by William Roby. They would have worked six days a week, so a Saturday off work for Christmas Day would have been most welcome. Though they would have lost a days wages. They met at a small house at 22 Pump Street, Manchester set amongst  mills, workshops and ironworks. Across London Road would have been a new railway station for Manchester (the one now called Piccadilly). Pump Street and most of this area was redeveloped at the start of the 20th Century when Whitworth Street and grander buildings were constructed. The old fire station was built on the site of Pump Street.

If you've ever organised a meeting then you'll know the getting enough seating is the first priority. You couldn't imagine a long table and lots of matching chairs like some upper middle class dinner party. Well not in small terraced abode on narrow cobbled street. The room would have been packed.

Anyway they decided to form a co-operative on the lines of the Pioneers of Rochdale who had already been successfully trading for 15 years. They would rent a shop and when they had raised £100 and had 100 members it would open. Six months later that plan came to fruition. On the 4th June 1859 the shop opened at 168 Great Ancoats Street.

Plate Survives

Golden Jubilee Plate M&S Co-operative 1909

Commemorative plates were issued to celebrate the golden jubilee of the Manchester & Salford Equitable Co-operative Society in 1909. It has pictures of John C Edwards the first President in 1859, and William Stansfield the President when the plate was made. The former is mentioned in an earlier posting. I do not have a biography of the chap on the right with the big moustache. He was President from July to December 1905, and was relected for the years 1906 - 1909 .

Those early co-operators

The Manchester and Salford Equitable Co-operative Society which built the Hardy Lane store in its expansion programme of the 1920's and 1930's had humble origins. Most co-operative societies started with renting some small premises and then only branching out when capital permitted. Many hundreds of societies never expanded beyond their one shop.

The M & SE opened for business on the 4th June 1859 in a terraced property at 168 Great Ancoats Street, Manchester. Sales in the first week amounted to £16. The histories of the Society written years later, are brief about the early years and focus mostly on financial growth. However I recently came across a reported speech four years after the commencement of the society. Annecdotes give more insight into the formation events. It was on the occasion of the laying down of the foundation stone for the new Central Stores and Offices in Downing Street, Ardwick on Saturday 7th November 1863.

"Four years last June we opened a shop; but before that it took seven years to organise a committee and commence the society. Out first purchase consisted of eight sacks of flour from the Rochdale Corn Mill, and when the cart drew up, a neighbouring shop keeper asked 'How long before do you expect it to be before you sell all that?' Well it was sold , and before long our weekly sales of flour reached 20 loads; and before the cotton famine the weekly receipts were £1500, but they fell to £500. We have seen the worse, and are not afraid of the future, for the sales are steadily rising"

Origins of M/c and Salford Co-op

"Manchester and Salford Society.—Few are aware that there is a Sunrise store in Manchester. The great Co-operative Society of the City and Salford situated in Downing Street is of this class. Mr. Charles Wright calls it the "Acorn" store, which —owing in no mean measure to his services as its secretary—is now an Oak store. The "Acorn" was sown at 169, Great Ancoats Street, in June, 1859. It began more hopefully than most stores. It had 111 members and a capital of £289. Its sales in the first week were £32. The rent of their shop was only £13, yet its receipts for the first complete year were £7,687."
The History of Co-operation by George Jacob Holyoake - taken from Chapter 12 published 1875 and revised 1906.

George Jacob Holyoake (1817–1906), atheist and freethinker, self-proclaimed 'agitator', champion of the working class, and co-operator, was born at Birmingham on 13 April 1817. There is an excellent website of Holyoake's writings.

He classifies Co-ops in the following ways :
"Co-operative Stores may be regarded as divisible into Dark Stores, Twilight Stores, and Sunrise Stores. The "Dark" Stores are those which give no share of profits to those they employ—give credit—which keeps up the habit of indebtedness in their members—and have no education fund in their rules. The "Twilight " stores are those which have some features or others of a "Sunrise" Store, but not all. "Sunrise" Stores are those which have the cardinal features of ready-money dealing, provision for intelligence, and who give the same dividend on the wages of all their employees as they give to the consumer who purchases at their counter, If "Sunrise" Stores increase it will be owing to the Women's Guilds, when they understand what true Co-operation means."

The website starts with the work of the Chartist, poet, author, and free thinker, Gerald Massey and has writings from other contemporaries besides G.J. Holyoake.