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Abstract
Economic historians have recently taught us a great deal about the ‘new consumerism’ in interwar Britain. However, the story has largely been told from the supply side and the Co-operative movement that played a key role in the lives of millions of working-class consumers has tended to be marginalised. This article brings the movement and the consumer centre stage. First, the uneven and vulnerable situation of the Co-op as a business is outlined. The next section briefly sketches economic and political attacks on the movement that made it more difficult to respond effectively to the challenges it faced. The major part of the article discusses oral evidence from ordinary co-operative members, which helps illuminate the contradictory pressures faced by consumers in this period.
Keywords:
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank an anonymous reader and John Walton for their helpful suggestions. I am also particularly grateful to James Feehan who transcribed the interview tapes.
Notes
1. Priestley, English Journey, 401–2; Baxendale, Priestley’s England.
2. Bowden, ‘The New Consumerism’.
3. Stevenson and Cook, The Slump; Scott, Triumph of the South.
4. Baxendale and Pawling, Narrating the Thirties; Vernon, Hunger.
5. Scott, ‘Marketing Mass Home Ownership’; idem, ‘Mr Drage, Mr Everyman, and the Creation of a Mass Market’; Scott and Walker, ‘Advertising, Promotion, and the Competitive Advantage’.
6. Contacts were elicited through letters placed in four local newspapers on either side of the Pennines. Around 100 people answered follow-up questionnaires and in-depth interviews were subsequently undertaken on a sample of a dozen co-operative members chosen from this group. All materials are deposited at the UK Data Archive, University of Essex.
7. Hornsby, ‘Co-operation in Crisis’, 159; Hough, Co-operative Retailing, 20.
8. Co-operative News, 19 April 1919, 3.
9. Purvis, ‘Retailing and Economic Uncertainty’.
10. Bonner, British Co-operation, 169; Redfern, The New History, 540.
11. Jefferys, Retail Trading, 75.
12. Bonner, British Co-operation, 163.
13. Carr-Saunders, Florence and Peers, Consumers’ Co-operation, 525.
14. Pollard, ‘The Foundation of the Co-operative Party’.
15. McKibbin, ‘Why Was There No Marxism in Great Britain?’.
16. See Jarvis, ‘Mrs Maggs and Betty’; Trentmann, Free Trade Nation.
17. McKibbin, Classes and Cultures, 96–8.
18. Gurney, Co-operative Culture, 221–4; Hilton, Consumerism, 117–22.
19. Bayliss, ‘The Consumers’ Council Bills’, 117–18; Gurney, Co-operative Culture, 225, 229; Hilton, Consumerism, 124–9.
20. Hansard, vol. 238, 8 May 1930, 1165–79, 1192, 1232.
21. Co-operative News, 10 May 1930, 8.
22. Ibid., 10; 28 June 1930, 5. For denunciations of the ‘margarine trust’ and ‘grocery combine’ see 19 July 1930, 1–2; 12 March 1932, 10.
23. Ibid., 5 July 1930, 10; 13 June 1931, 1; 27 June 1931, 1, 7; 18 July 1931, 5, 7. A Co-op MP, G.S. Woods, introduced a Consumers’ Council Bill in 1939 that failed to attract support. See ibid., 18 February 1939, 3. The idea was also floated at the start of World War Two before being vetoed by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) as James Hinton notes in, ‘The Tale of Sammy Spree’, 98–100.
24. See Killingback, ‘Limits to Mutuality’.
25. Co-operative Congress Report, 1934, 212–13; Cole, A Century of Co-operation, 298, 327.
26. Co-operative News, 28 November 1931, 4, 8; 13 February 1932, 8; 5 March 1932, 8; Davis, Free Trade.
27. Co-operative News, 11 April 1931, 5.
28. Gurney, Co-operation and Consumerism, 187.
29. Ibid., 85–6.
30. Johnson, Saving and Spending.
31. Gurney, Co-operation and Consumerism, 56.
32. Ibid., 218; see also 106–7.
33. Ibid., 162.
34. Ibid., 166.
35. Ibid., 23, 32.
36. See Tebbutt, Women's Talk?
37. Gurney, Co-operation and Consumerism, 56.
38. Ibid., 164.
39. Ibid., 101.
40. Ibid., 78.
41. Ibid., 40.
42. Ibid., 22, 36–7.
43. Ibid., 72–3.
44. Ibid., 86.
45. Ibid., 166.
46. Ibid., 13.
47. Ibid., 208, 214.
48. See Fowler, The First Teenagers; Todd, Young Women.
49. Jefferys, Retail Trading, 76–7.
50. Redfern, The New History, 392–7.
51. Rees, St Michael, 85.
52. Rowntree, Poverty and Progress, 219.
53. Gurney, Co-operation and Consumerism, 133. For so-called ‘diddlum clubs’ see ibid., 103–4; O’Connell, Credit and Community, 223–35.
54. Gurney, Co-operation and Consumerism, 38–9. The threat from ‘bazaar trading’ was often discussed. See Co-operative News, 12 October 1935, 10; 16 November 1935, 19.
55. Gurney, Co-operation and Consumerism, 63–9.
56. Ibid., 108–9.
57. Ibid., 38.
58. Ibid., 223. See also Briggs, The Friends of the People.
59. Co-operative News, 9 August 1930, 9; 21 June 1930, 9; 16 May 1931, 9.
60. Scott, ‘The Twilight World’; Taylor, Working-class Credit.
61. Hornsby, ‘Co-operation in Crisis’, 199–207; Robertson, ‘“A Good Deal … and a Good Deal More”’, 53–5; O’Connell, Credit and Community, 209–23.
62. See Gittins, Fair Sex; Giles, The Parlour and the Suburb.
63. Gurney, Co-operation and Consumerism, 51, 215. Mr Hulme in contrast recalled that people generally settled their credit accounts, 257.
64. Ibid., 106.
65. Schwarzkopf, ‘Innovation, Modernisation, Consumerism’.
66. Co-operative Policy in Relation to the Organisation of the Retail Trade (1921), 5–6, cited in Hornsby, ‘Co-operation in Crisis’, 144.
67. Haslam, The Co-operative Official, 14 (1932): 483–4.
68. Co-operative News, 11 October 1930, 8; Gurney, Co-operation and Consumerism, 165.
69. Robertson, ‘“A Good Deal … and a Good Deal More”’, 41; Burton, The British Consumer Co-operative Movement and Film.
70. Gurney, Co-operation and Consumerism, 199.
71. Co-operative News, 6 December 1930, ‘Supplement’, ii–iii.
72. Schwarzkopf, ‘Innovation, Modernisation, Consumerism’, 209.
73. Co-operative News, 18 May 1935, 4.
74. Church and Clark, ‘Product Development’.
75. See Bolton Co-operative Record, July 1928; Co-operative Congress Report (1927).
76. Co-operative News, 5 July 1930, 10; 12 July 1930, 8; 25 October 1930, 10. Note also Walton, ‘Commemorating the Co-op’.
77. See Thomson, Anzac Memories; Abrams, Oral History Theory.
78. Black and Robertson, ‘Taking Stock: An Introduction’, 5.
79. Gurney, Co-operation and Consumerism, 261.
80. Ibid., 14–15.
81. For an attempt to tackle the issue see my article, Gurney, ‘The Battle of the Consumer’.
82. Southern, ‘The Co-operative Movement in the North West’; Robertson, The Co-operative Movement and Communities.
83. Gurney, Co-operation and Consumerism, 259.
84. Manton, ‘The Labour Party and the Co-op’.
85. Rhodes, An Arsenal for Labour; Robertson, The Co-operative Movement and Communities.
86. See Longden, Co-operation and the New Orientation, 93; Redfern, The New History, 330, 369. Note also Hilton, Consumerism, 129–31.
87. Mercer, Constructing a Competitive Order. Centralisation contributed to the decline of the WCG according to Gillian Scott in, Feminism and the Politics of Working Women.
88. Redfern, The New History, 370.
89. Gurney, Co-operation and Consumerism, 235–6.
90. Bowden and Offer, ‘Household Appliances’.
91. Redfern, The New History, 395–7.
92. See Forty, Objects of Desire, 200–6.
93. Co-operative Co-partnership: Democracy in Industry (Co-operative Co-partnership Propaganda Committee, n.d., 1935?), 23; Cole, A Century of Co-operation, 292, 394–6.
94. The CWS's dismal record after 1945 is discussed by Whitworth, ‘Promoting Product Quality’.
95. Carr-Saunders, Florence and Peers, Consumers’ Co-operation, 508. Note also Saler, The Avant-garde.