Flying below the radar: England’s early co-operative and co-partnership tenant societies today

Abstract

Ten co-operative housing societies established in the period immediately before the First World War continue to operate today, providing inexpensive rental accommodation to their tenant-members. Their survival is remarkable, particularly as they have almost no knowledge of the other remaining societies and no relationship with the mainstream co-operative housing movement. Although each society has evolved its own ways of operating, all maintain structures which remain recognisably co-operative. The challenges they have faced, for example in avoiding demutualisation, in building adequate governance structures, and in reconciling individual member interests with the collective interests of the whole society, provide valuable lessons, particularly for today’s community-led housing initiatives.