Collective strength and mutual aid: Financial provisions for members of co-operative societies in Britain

Abstract

Notably one of the principles most prominently associated with Rochdale Co-operation is the system of paying dividend, a rate of return based on purchases rather than capital holding. This article argues that the dividend, though important, was only one aspect of financial assistance co-operative retail societies offered their members. By focusing on the period of the 1920s–40s, it explores how collective strength and mutual aid provided by societies extended to financial support during periods of economic crisis and industrial action. Credit in times of need was especially important for members of societies affected by trade depression, industrial crisis and unemployment during the interwar years. The article also argues that membership could give access to much wider support than is typically associated with the retail aspect of co-operative societies. For example, societies assisted individual members, or the families of members, during periods of illness and death. The article highlights how, as trading organisations, the spirit of mutual help within co-operative retail societies incorporated an element of collective expenditure. In addition to providing support for hospitals located in the communities in which they traded, societies also offered financial aid to nationally recognised charities. In this way financial assistance and support provided through the co-operative business model was not solely focused on extending the purchasing power of individual consumers.

Keywords:

• co-operatives
• co-operation
• dividend
• thrift
• credit
• purchasing power
• mutual aid
• charity

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Chris Wrigley, Peter Scott, Andrew Pasley and the editors of this special issue for their help and advice with this paper. I would also like to thank staff at the Bishopsgate Library, Flintshire Record Office, National Co-operative Archives, National Library of Scotland and Swansea University Archives for their assistance.

Notes

 1. Cole, A Century of Co-operation, 63–4.

 2. Bailey, The British Co-operative Movement; Birchall, Co-op: The People's Business; idem, The International Co-operative Movement.

 3. Wrigley, ‘The Co-operative Movement’, 103.

 4. Walton, ‘Co-operation in Lancashire, 1844–1914’, 117.

 5. Purvis, ‘The Development of Co-operative Retailing’; Benson and Ugolini, A Nation of Shopkeepers.

 6. Blaszak, The Matriarchs of England's Cooperative Movement; idem, ‘The Gendered Geography of the English Co-operative Movement’; Walton, ‘Locality, Gender and Co-operation in England’; Blaszak, ‘The Hazards of Localism’; Gaffin and Thoms, Caring & Sharing; Scott, Feminism, Femininity and the Politics of Working Women.

 7. Black and Robertson, Consumerism and the Co-operative Movement; Furlough and Strikwerda, Consumers Against Capitalism?; Hilton, Consumerism in Twentieth-Century Britain.

 8. Burton, The People's Cinema; idem, The British Co-operative Movement Film Catalogue; Jones, The British Labour Movement and Film.

 9. Carbery, Consumers in Politics; Robertson, ‘The Political Dividend’; Pollard, ‘The Co-operative Party’; idem, ‘The Foundation of the Co-operative Party’; Adams, ‘The Formation of the Co-operative Party Re-considered’; idem, ‘Co-operation and Politics’.

 10. Gurney, Co-operative Culture and the Politics of Consumption.

 11. Robertson, The Co-operative Movement and Communities in Britain; Gurney, Co-operative Culture; Birchall, Co-op.

 12. Samy, ‘Extending Home Ownership before the First World War’.

 13. Johnson, Saving and Spending.

 14. Gurney, Co-operative Culture; Walton, ‘The Making of a Mass Movement’.

 15. Hilson, ‘Consumers and Politics’; Rhodes, An Arsenal for Labour; Southern, ‘Cooperation in the North West of England, 1919–1939’; Turnbull and Southern, More than Just a Shop; Walton, ‘Co-operation in Lancashire’.

 16. Gurney, Co-operative Culture, 24.

 17. Matthew Worley has discussed the importance of researching local and regional identities of national organisations. Worley, ‘Introduction: Labour's Grass Roots’, 1–4.

 18. Lawson, One Hundred Years of Co-operation, 54, 63.

 19. KICS Half-yearly Report, October 29, 1949, National Co-operative Archives, Manchester.

 20. Redfern, South and West Wales, 55.

 21. Co-operative Directory, 1928, 112–13.

 22. Policy Pamphlet of the Nineteen Sixty Campaign Committee, Giant Strides, 35.

 23. London Co-operative Society, London Co-operative Exhibition, 2.

 24. Carr-Saunders, Florence and Peers, Consumers’ Co-operation in Great Britain; Hall and Watkins, Co-operation; Hough, Dividend on Co-operative Purchases; idem, Co-operative Retailing, 1914–1945.

 25. Hough, Dividend on Co-operative Purchases, preface.

 26. Carr-Saunders, Florence and Peers, Consumers’ Co-operation in Great Britain, 509.

 27. Bonner, British Co-operation, 321.

 28. Turnbull and Southern, More than Just a Shop, 6. Martin Purvis also notes how the dividend enabled working people to share in the profits of trade and this was used to supplement income or as the basis of longer term savings. Purvis, ‘The Development of Co-operative Retailing’, 314–15.

 29. Turnbull and Southern, More than Just a Shop, 5; Birchall, Co-op, 58; Weinbren, Generating Socialism, 55.

 30. Co-operative News, February 22, 1936, 20; idem, October 1, 1932, 7.

 31. Ibid., January 7, 1933, 2.

 32. EPCS Quarterly Report, February 20, 1937, D/DM/431/1-4, Flintshire Records Office; KICS Half-yearly Report and Balance Sheets, April 26, 1947.

 33. Wheatsheaf (London Co-operative Society), January 1930, iii–iv; Lawson, One Hundred Years of Co-operation.

 34. Co-operative News, June 29, 1935, 3; idem, January 18, 1936, 16.

 35. KICS Half-yearly Report, October 30, 1948.

 36. Bonner, British Co-operation, 321.

 37. Johnson, Saving and Spending, 143.

 38. Gurney, ‘Heads, Hands and the Co-operative Utopia’, North West Labour History, 14.

 39. Topham and Hough, The Co-operative Movement in Britain, 17.

 40. Ibid.

 41. Lewis, The Rhondda Valleys, 251–6. By 1939 coal production in the Rhondda pits was a third of its 1913 level. Numbers employed in mining fell by 50% between 1927 and 1936, although rearmament and war led to a partial revival in the demand for coal. Williams, Democratic Rhondda, 25–7.

 42. Redfern, North Wales To-day, 54.

 43. Gildart, ‘Militancy, Moderation and the Struggle Against Company Unionism’, 534.

 44. Unlike Rhondda, this area ‘was not dominated by the economics of coal’. Gildart, ‘Men of Coal’, 112–17. Other industries included the manufacture of bricks and pottery. Bennett's Business Directory for North Wales, 34.

 45. Redfern, North Wales To-day, 54.

 46. EPCS Quarterly Report, August 27, 1938.

 47. TICS Half-yearly Report, September 24, 1927, SWCC:MNC /COP/7/43, University of Wales, Swansea.

 48. Redfern, South and West Wales, 55.

 49. Ibid., 56.

 50. Bennett's Business Directory for North Wales.

 51. Cole, A Century of Co-operation; Bonner, British Co-operation; Birchall, Co-op. The refusal of credit was likely to have stemmed from Co-operators in the early nineteenth century witnessing credit trading causing, among other problems, entrapment for many workers within a constant cycle of debt. In some cases, societies that were unable to recover large amounts of debt collapsed. Cole, A Century of Co-operation, 9.

 52. Birchall, Co-op, 54.

 53. Lazell, Consumers and the Community, 11.

 54. Gray, The System of Credit as Practised by Co-operative Societies, 17–19.

 55. Scott and Walker, ‘That's the Way the Money Goes’. My thanks to the authors for allowing me to read this draft paper.

 56. Carr-Saunders, Florence and Peers, Consumers’ Co-operation in Great Britain, 122; Scott and Walker, ‘That's the Way the Money Goes’, 8.

 57. Thomas, ‘Rearmament and Economic Recovery in the Late 1930s’, 552.

 58. Stevenson and Cook, The Slump, 9.

 59. The Co-operative Union is an all-embracing co-operative federation that includes retail distributive societies. It is organised into nine geographical areas/regional sections: the Irish, Scottish, Northern, North-Eastern, North-Western, Midland, Southern, South-Western and Western sections. Twigg, The Economic Advance of British Co-operation 1913–1931, 17–18.

 60. They also donated money to canteens in the district (TICS General Committee Minutes, April 12, 1921, SWCC:MNA/COP/7/12–13, University of Wales, Swansea) and gave money directly to the distress funds of colliers in the nearby area (TICS General Committee Minutes, February 22, 1921).

 61. For example, TICS General Committee Minutes, April 26, 1921, May 25, 1921, June 17, 1921, July 6, 1921, April 26, 1922, November 14, 1922.

 62. TICS General Committee Minutes, May 4, 1926, May 12, 1926, May 18, 1926, June 1, 1926, June 8, 1926.

 63. This area contained developing industries, notably brick and pipe manufacturing. Pritchard, The Making of Buckley and District, 141.

 64. Ibid., 141; Redfern, North Wales To-day, 54.

 65. Redfern, North Wales To-day, 54.

 66. Newlands, ‘The Regional Economies of Scotland’, 166–7.

 67. SCCA Quarterly Report, December 4, 1923, Acc.11835/156–63, National Library of Scotland. Also the miners’ strike of 1926 which, it was reported, had ‘hit hard’ at many members on the fringe of the Association's trading district. The year 1935 was also named a difficult year for business, with a rise in unemployed in Edinburgh. Lawson, One Hundred Years of Co-operation, 35, 41.

 68. Greenall, A History of Kettering, 196–7.

 69. Stevenson and Cook, The Slump, 20.

 70. White, London in the Twentieth Century, 188–90.

 71. TICS General Committee Minutes, July 6, 1921; KICS Board Minutes, May 5, 1926, National Co-operative Archives, Manchester.

 72. The definition and distinction provided by Hall and Watkins is that in the case of hire purchase ‘the purchaser makes a deposit when the purchase is effected and enters into an agreement to pay the balance of the purchase price (which is generally higher than that paid by a cash purchaser because of the interest on the unpaid balance) by regular instalments … Although the goods are in the possession of the purchaser they do not become his property until all the instalments are paid.’ Whereas a member of a mutuality club on joining ‘applies for a number of £1 shares … for each share he pays 1s per week, and after he has paid a specified number of instalments – usually three – he is allowed to have goods to the full nominal value of the share he has taken out, but continues his payments until the shares are fully paid’. Hall and Watkins, Co-operation, 205–6.

 73. Tebbutt, Making Ends Meet, 192–3.

 74. Benson, The Rise of Consumer Society in Britain 1880–1980; Scott, ‘Mr Drage, Mr Everyman, and the Creation of a Mass Market’; idem, ‘The Twilight World of Interwar Hire Purchase’.

 75. KICS Half-yearly Report, December 31, 1927; London Co-operative Society, Alice's New Wonderland – Christmas Catalogue, 20.

 76. Tebbutt, Making Ends Meet, 192.

 77. Taylor, ‘Funny Money, Hidden Charges and Repossession’, 179.

 78. EPCS Minutes, December 7, 1934, D/DM/431/1–4, Flintshire Records Office.

 79. Scott and Walker, ‘That's the Way the Money Goes’, 8.

 80. Carr-Saunders, Florence and Peers, Consumers’ Co-operation in Great Britain; Richardson, ‘Co-operative Tea Parties’; Attfield, With Light of Knowledge.

 81. Bailey, The British Co-operative Movement, 39.

 82. LCS Half-yearly Report, March 8, 1947, LCS/ Temp No.1196-1201, Bishopsgate Library; SCCA, Half-yearly Report, March 8, 1921.

 83. The Kettering Industrial Co-operative Society donated money to the Peterborough Cathedral Restoration fund. KICS Board Minutes, April 8, 1925.

 84. The Spanish Relief Fund had been established by the Co-operative Union in 1936 following the outbreak of civil war in Spain and an appeal by the International Co-operative Alliance for ‘funds to relieve the distress of co-operative victims’. Co-operative Congress Report, 1937, 16–17.

 85. Co-operative Congress Report, 1938, 14.

 86. Both the London (the largest retail society in Britain) and Ewloe Place (one of the smallest retail societies in Britain) contributed to this work. LCS Quarterly Report, June 4, 1938; EPCS Minutes, November 19, 1937.

 87. Carr-Saunders, Florence and Peers, Consumers’ Co-operation in Great Britain, 112–13.

 88. The St Cuthbert's Association reported that during the General Strike they received many requests from members in mining districts for assistance, and in no case where the circumstances warranted had a free supply of goods been refused. Many letters of thanks were received. Lawson, One Hundred Years of Co-operation, 36.

 89. Ewloe Place donated money to Chester Infirmary (EPCS Minutes, January 5, 1937). The Kettering Society gave money to the Kettering General Hospital (KICS Board Minutes, April 8, 1925). The London Society donated money to numerous hospitals in the London area including: Metropolitan Hospital, Royal Albert Dock Hospital and the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic (LCS Half-yearly Report, March 8, 1947).

 90. Small and large societies alike supported the Nursing Association. Ewloe Place provided money in response to an appeal from the Nursing Association (EPCS Minutes, July 15, 1938), and the London society donated to numerous branches of the Nursing Association within the area including the High Barnet Nursing Association, Hackney District Nurses’ Association and the West Hendon and Colindale District Nursing Association (LCS Half-yearly Report, March 8, 1947).

 91. KICS Half-yearly Report, October 26, 1940.

 92. The St Cuthbert's Association endowed a bed in the Royal Infirmary and a cot in the Sick Children's hospital, to mark its 50th anniversary. Lawson, One Hundred Years of Co-operation, 20.

 93. Mr Adams, President of the Kettering Society, represented it as a Governor on the local hospital board (KICS Board Minutes, April 8, 1925). Mr W.J. Gruar, President of the Ton Society, was vice-chairman of the Treherbert hospital Committee (Wheatsheaf, South Wales, 1929, 15).

 94. St Cuthbert's Co-operative Association granted money to the Edinburgh and District British-Soviet Unity Council in response to an appeal for funds for the Stalingrad hospital. If this appeal was oversubscribed, the Society instructed that the donation should go towards the restoration of the Leningrad hospital. SCCA Quarterly Report, March 30, 1944.

 95. Fraser, The Evolution of the British Welfare State, 199–200.

 96. Thane, The Foundations of the Welfare State, 190.

 97. KICS Half-yearly Report, July 3, 1926.

 98. Reports of the Sectional Boards, Co-operative Congress Report, 1927, 220–1.

 99. Reports of the Sectional Boards, 1926, 238.

100. Reports of the Sectional Boards, 1922, 120.

101. Johnson, Saving and Spending, 12.

102. Ibid., 193.

103. Wheatsheaf (London edition), February 1930, ii.

104. Wheatsheaf (London edition), February 1939, ii; KICS Half-yearly Report, October 29, 1938; TICS Half-yearly Report, September 19, 1931.

105. TICS Half-yearly Report, 12 March, 1938.

106. SCCA Quarterly Report, March 5, 1946 (President's Address).

107. Bailey, The British Co-operative Movement, 39.