The Women’s Co-operative Guild, 1883–1904 (Kirkby Lonsdale: WCG, 1904), 141–147, 161–163

Abstract

[This extract is from the first history of the WCG, published to mark the organisation’s “coming of age” or twenty-first anniversary. Under Llewelyn Davies’ leadership, the guild became more overtly feminist, launching various campaigns on specific women’s issues such as equal pay within co-operative enterprises, “open membership”, maternity rights, divorce law reform and female suffrage. Poverty was an abiding concern. Llewelyn Davies called for a “People’s Store” in 1899, with low prices and dividends and provision for a “settlement” with resident workers, which was taken up by the Sunderland society in 1902, with some initial success though the venture collapsed two years later. [G.D.H. Cole A Century of Co-operation (Manchester: Co-operative Union, 1945), 221–223] From one angle this activity appears in line with traditions of middle-class philanthropic endeavour and forms of “social motherhood”, but this was also a genuine attempt to make the movement more socially inclusive which directly challenged the complacent attitude of some leading male co-operators, forcing them to confront an issue that was becoming centre stage in socialist propaganda. A chapter on “Citizenship” in Llewelyn Davies’ history documented the activities of guildswomen as elected Poor Law Guardians, numbers of which had steadily increased in the late 1890s, as well as their protests against the abolition of vestries and School Boards, on which women sat, and their replacement by Borough Councils, from which women were barred. The extract from this chapter reproduced below illustrates the major role played by the guild in the politicisation of consumption before World War One, educating ordinary consumers about prices and waging a staunch defence of free trade, a policy recently challenged by Joseph Chamberlain and the Tariff Reform League. Understandable given the guild’s concern for working-class housewives, this tactic reinforced links between the Liberal Party and co-operation, while further alienating socialists such as Harry Quelch who once described free trade as “one of the most impudent humbugs that was ever foisted on long-suffering humanity”. [Peter Gurney, Co-operative Culture and the Politics of Consumption in England, 1870–1930 (1996), 189; Frank Trentmann, Free trade nation: commerce, consumption, and civil society in modern Britain (2009)]] 274Other occurrences have also contributed to produce this awakening among women, especially among Co-operative women. Questions of taxation, leading to rises in the price of food, affect Co-operators and working women very closely indeed. The Guild began to take action in 1894, when, joining with Co-operative Societies, it forwarded a memorial to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in favour of what is known as a “Free Breakfast Table,” urging the removal of taxes from tea, coffee, cocoa, chicory, and dried fruits. The policy laid down was subsequently followed up by vigorous petitions to Chancellors, resolutions to M.P.’s, and speeches by women on the proposed sugar1 and corn duties, and culminated in the great protest that has been made by our members in favour of free trade, when the fiscal campaign of last year (1903), was sprung upon the country.