Tea Trolley rolls in

On recent visit to a meeting at the Hardy Lane Co-op Rooms managed to photograph the old tea trolley. It is one of the relics that has survived all the refurbishments of the premises over the years. Can't put a date on it but don't expect it to fetch much money in an antique auction. Some things survive and this has probably because it is not a fixture or fitting. Next time I'll inspect the underside for clues about its manufacture.

Actually seen it many times but paid it no heed until someone regaled a story of how it would be wheeled into the main room bearing a big tea pot and white cups and thus uplifting a dull and ponderous meeting. A nice refreshing brew and a break. That trolley has a history.

Fortunately the meeting this time wasn't dull. It was a history presentation by local historian Andrew Simpson. It was under the auspices of Withington Co-Operative Party and so had a local political theme. Going back to the 1832 General Election and forward to the contemporary political landscape with a nod to Chartism, Clarion, Peterloo and the Moss Side bye election of 1973.

As a nice touch one lucky person in the room won a copy of "The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy" written by the speaker. It has recently been published by The History Press. The rest of us had the opportunity to buy one and insist on a signed copy.

The tea trolley was rolled back into the kitchen, the post meeting social chatter followed and eventually everyone went home or to the pub.

Owen, the North, the flame

Excellent post this week on The Northener Blog at The Guardian. It is entitled "When Manchester & Salford Lit The Co-op Flame".

"10,000 people gather in Manchester next week for Co-operatives United, the conference of the International Co-operative Alliance which is celebrating the UN International Year of the Co-operative. Michael Herbert looks back to the radical days of the movement in the city and neighbouring Salford."

Here is a fact from the post - the first Co-operative Congress was held in the Spread Eagle public houe on Chapel Street, Salford.

Link.

Co-op Party Exhibition

There is a small exhibition of Co-Operative Party material at the People's History Museum.

It is located in the Processional Way, which is to say in a corner on the ground floor. Worth a look before you go to the Demon Drink : Temperance exhibition.

It is on until Monday 5th November, and the museum is open 7 days a week.

"this display examines the story of the Co-operative Party; taking the visitor on a journey from its origins within the co-operative movement to the growing political power of its parliamentary members and the 1927 agreement with the Labour Party." Link.



I took numerous photographs, for this is material that you don't ofter get a chance to see. See Flickr set.

So top marks to the PHM for delving in the archives and giving the memorabilia an airing.

Left Book Club Edition

I bet somewhere in Britain there is a room that has every Left Book Club publication on the shelves. The red hardback editions (1938-1948), and I have just one, and an obscure one at that. "The Smaller Democracies" 1939 by Sir Ernest Simon. Only picked it up 'cos he lived in Didsbury and a former Liberal MP for this constituency. Also a softback edition in orange (1936-1938) called "Spanish Testament" by Arthur Koestler. Original prices were 2/6d (12.5p)

This brings us on to “The Co-operative Movement in Labour Britain,” edited for the Fabian Society by Noah Barou, Ph.D. (Econ.) and published by Victor Gollancz Ltd., of London, for the Left Book Club in 1948. It's just an excuse to find a Left Book Club and a Co-Op connection.

The heydays of the Left Book Club are from its formation in 1936 and into the WWII. Unashamedly left leaning propaganda. Well you weren't going to find that "Bolshie" talk on the BBC Home Service or printed in the bourgeoisie press. Nor where you going to find them officially supported at Labour Party meetings. It was seen as a "popular front" organisation and that meant the Communist Party members would be involve. I have yet to find any local Co-Operative Guild or Co-Op Party meetings about the Left Book Club, though that doesn't mean there weren't any. There were Left Book Discussion meetings in Chorlton before WWII but not at Hardy Lane.

Not read this book as I don't have a copy nor is available online. But I'm almost tempted to obtain a second hand copy out of curiosity. Dr. N. Barou also wrote about "Co-operation in the Soviet Union" 1946, "British Trade Unions" 1947, and "Co-operative Insurance" 1936, "World Co-operation 1844-1944", plus numerous other books. Even more curious after having read Noah Barou's obituary - born 23 November 1889 Poltava, Ukraine died 5th September 1955 in London....exiled by the Tsarist regime, spoke at meetings with Trotsky, and head of the Moscow Narodny Bank in London. Though he's best remembered for his tireless work for the Jewish World Congress.


Note the "Not For Sale To The Public" on the front cover. This was part of the agreement with the Booksellers Association and the Publishers Association which regulated how the way Book Clubs operated. The Left Book Club was the most successful of the 1930's political book clubs. The others Labour Book Service, Liberal Book Club and Right Book Club published titles too.


Year ago there was a second hand bookshop on Beech Road in Chorlton and they had a lot of those thin hardback Left Book Club editions. But harder to find now. If you interested try Abe Books to find second hand books and their sellers online.

Another New World Order

There have been numerous books with "The New World Order" in the title. The words always have a sinister ring to me, possibly because I associate the phrase with world domination. Though I've not got a copy of this pamphlet, it being a "Summary of the Co-operative Party's programme for reconstruction", I was attracted by the title to take a picture of the cover. It is in the Working Class Movement Library. Published by the Nottingham Co-operative Society, in 1944 and it fits into 16 pages. If it was by the Co-Operative Party then there would be nothing totalitarian between the covers.

There was an H.G. Wells book published some four year earlier called "The New World Order". Its a plan to unite the nations of the world in order to bring peace and end war. It was republished in 2007 and you can read it online at Project Guttenberg. I suggest Chapter 6 called Socialism Unavoidable and let me know what he was on about. He was 74 and having a rant.

The Frank Leeman pamphlet is consigned to the archives. As for Frank then I know nothing except he could do a Clement Atlee look-a-likey.

Victory Year Co-Op Day

The first Saturday of July has been International Co-operators Day since 1923. Sometimes it is marked with events, in more recent years a family fun day in Morcambe, though i do remember a big event in The Lowry and in front of it a few years ago. Picture is for the 1945 celebrations in Wythenshawe Park which was also used as a Victory Celebration. All the usual timetable of events with speeches, children's sports and brass band.

Note the presenter of the prizes was to be Councillor Alf Robens who would have just been elected MP for Wansbeck, Northumberland two days earlier. Alf was born in Chorlton-cum-Hardy in 1910 and is best remembered for his days as Chairman of the National Coal Board (1960-1971).

The official opening was to be conducted by Councillor Elizabeth Yarwood, a Labour & Co-operative Party member, later to become a director of the Manchester & Salford Co-op, Lord Mayor of Manchester and awarded a Damehood in 1967.There is an Elizabeth Slinger Court, an appartement block in Wythenshawe. One year you are opening a festival in the park and thirty years later they name a nearby building after you.

There is a lot of history attached to the CWS (Manchester) Band which started out as the Tobacco Factory band but this is outside my field.

Socialism & Co-Operation

Are yes the bloated, fat cat capitalist. Substitute the frock coat, spats and top hat for the pin stripe suit and it could be 2012 not recession in the 1930's.

This was an Independent Labour Party pamphlet and they produced many of them. There was one about Socialism and the Co-Operative Movement but it doesn't have an interesting cover - just a plain title.

So what did they have to say...
"Collective ownership, democratic control, the abolition of profit, production for use - these are the fundamental principles of Socialism as well as Co-Operation. Both Movements look to their universal application as the necessary foundation for the social system they desire. While Socialism is not yet a reality, the Co-Operative Movement already has done much to translate Socialist principles into practise, and where gaps exist between Socialist theory and Co-Operative practise their causes must be looked for, not in difference of principle, but in the circumstances which inevitably surround ant practical living experiment in the making of a new world."

Well it is still capitalist economics, there are still co-operatives, and then there is still the ILP publications. Discuss?

Co-Ops - Obstacle or Inspiration?

Considering this is only a 23 page booklet it has been a struggle to read and understand it. It is a copy of the 10th Blandford Memorial Lecture delivered by Jack Bailey in 1950, and published by the Co-operative Co-partnership Propaganda Committee.

The story behind the names. Thomas Blandford (1861–1899) was co-operative movement activist being Secretary and the driving force of the Co-operative Productive Federation. Founded in 1882 to promote unity of action amongst the productive societies, securing capital, and finding markets for their products. It had some success in the East Midlands. He died after an illness when only aged 38.

Much later a charitable fund and a series of lectures were inaguarated in his memory. The first lecture was in 1941 entitled Towards Economic Democracy by Herbert Tracey, the publicity officer of the TUC. Harking back to the 19th Century the lectures were published to reach a wider audience. Otherwise nobody outside the room in Leicester where they were delivered would know about them.

There were at least 19 annual lectures which takes us up to 1959. Maybe more? Speakers included Prof. G.D.H. Cole on Co-Operation, Labour and Socialism, Will Lawther, the President of the Miners Federation of Great Britain with Can Industrial Democracy Survive? and Alan Birch, General Secretary of USDAW on Industrial Relations in Co-Operative Employment.

Jack Bailey (1898–1969) then Secretary of the Co-Operative Party had the opportunity to craft his address in 1950. In it he poses three long questions and then answers them or rather in that debating technique asks you to discuss them....He also examines the co-operative principles of self-help, mutual-aid, self-supply, and self-government.

"Whether the state in itself be good or bad, whether the power which os vested in it be used wisely or unwisley I believe it to be bad thing to make it too largely the repsitory of economic and social power"....optimistly he points to a sign that the Labour Party wedded to nationalisation programme is searching for alternative methods of social ownership. It didn't find any.

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.

Garibaldi at the Co-Op

Garibaldi visited England in April 1864. He was world famous before the yacht landed at the Isle of Wight, he was a sensation when he stayed in London. [ Now before you read more can I point out that his name is pronounced Gary-Bal-Dee ]. Everyone wanted to meet him, he drew massive crowds at speaking engagements and received hundreds of invitations.

Manchester wanted him to visit. A Manchester Working Men's Garibaldi Reception Committee was got together and the Free Trade Hall was going to be the venue. However the legendary hero left abruptly, supposedly on ill-health grounds but really under pressure from the British Government. Whilst it had suited British foreign policy to remove the Austrians from the Italian states and have a unified new country it didn't want a radical, inspirational revolutionary touring the industrial provinces. Garibaldi's notions of democracy, emancipation, freedom and women's rights were not on the political agenda of the ruling classes.

So what do we have. Italy has thousands of squares, roads and statues to the great man. Britain has a biscuit originally produced by Peak Freans in 1861. A type of blouse and shirt popular then but not seen now. Also the colours of Nottingham Forest football club who adopted red in honour of the Garibaldi's irregular army of Red Shirts. Arsenal play in red because Forest gifted them a full kit years later.

However disappointed as the people of Manchester were the M&SE Co-Op produced an hagiographic address which they forwarded to our hero.

Tribune Archive

Over the years I've subscribed to many a left-ish magazine for a year or so. Some are still around New Statesman, Tribune and Red Pepper. Some have disappeared from the newsstands - Labour Weekly, New Socialist and others I don't recall.

Anyway there is a great archive of articles from The Tribune 1937-2011. It's every political battle for over 60 years. It is searchable, and as ever I put in the word "co-operation". The returns run into hundreds. Everything from Co-operative Party Conference reports, the need for mergers, and the links with the Labour Party. You might prefer the landmarks of Pearl Harbour, Miners Strike, Berlin Wall or the Tet Offensive. It's all there with those typos that come from digitizing print media to e-media.

There is a whole series "At the sign of the Wheatsheaf" which runs throughout the 1950's and 60's - one of those editorial advertisement features about current topics with a plug for CWS products. You'll need the link. Here it is : archive tribune.

Co-op Candidates 1934

A first venture into local politics for the members of the Guild, Co-op Party and local Labour Party was in 1934.

"We are particularly proud of the fact that Barlow Moor Guild has put up a candidate for its own ward, and we have a whole-hearted enthusiasm amongst all the members of the Guild that should go a long way in attaining the result we are aiming for, that for the first time in municipal history the Didsbury Ward will be represented on the City Council by a democratic candidate, who is also of the M&S Co-op Party and a Guild worker."
Barlow Moor Guild Report in the Manchester & Salford Co-operative Herald October 1934

An optimistic outlook for an election contest in a safe Tory seat. There were two other candidates nominated by the Co-op Party - Mrs. Clara Bamber in Chorlton; and Mr. William Taylor (then Secretary of Withington Constituency Labour Party) in St. Luke's ward. A grant of £3 3s. (£3.15) was made to the Manchester Labour Party towards the expenses of a poster campaign. Also the Directors of the Co-op Society designated three cars to be placed at the disposal of the three candidates to be available from noon on polling day.
M&S Co-op Party Report in the Manchester & Salford Co-operative Herald December 1934.

Thursday 1st November 1934 - Manchester Municipal Elections
Didsbury ward
S.P.Dawson (C) 3027
W.Ingham (Lab) 1355

An unsuprising result against the sitting Conservative, Councillor Lt-Col S.P.Dawson MM who was first elected for Didsbury in 1928. As of yet I've been unable to find a picture of Mr.Ingham, his name crops up a number of times in Labour and Co-operative reports in this period.

The other results were :
Chorlton ward -
W.Somerville (C) 4,580
Clara Bamber (Lab) 1,664

St. Luke's
T.R.Ackroyd (L) 1873
W.Taylor (Lab) 1341