British Co-operative Movement Research Articles

Co-operation and education: Historical perspectives

The history of the British consumer co-operative movement reveals strong affinities between co-operation and education. Following the historical chronology of the movement helps to illuminate diverse meanings and practices of co-operative education. From the early nineteenth century, through long periods of growth and subsequent decline, many educational initiatives and experiments, both informal and formal, have been visible. While each of these were products of particular times, there were many interconnections between them and they continue to be of interest to co-operative educators.

Sidney Pollard’s ‘Nineteenth Century Co-operation’ revisited: Periodisation, utopianism and realism in the British co-operative movement

The co-operative movement in Britain has always held within it a utopian strand, influenced by the ideas of Robert Owen, the “father of co-operation.” Motivated by the recent creation of workers.coop, a new organisation of worker co-operatives, this essay charts the course of this utopianism from the nineteenth-century to the present day. Using Sidney Pollard’s seminal account of co-operative utopianism vs co-operative realism, it asks whether a new periodisation of the British co-operative moment is now required, given the marginalisation of consumer co-operation as a tool for social change since the 1960s and the “rediscovery” of worker co-operation. With both the UK Labour Party and the Co-operative Party promising to “double” the number of co-operatives in the UK going into the next general election in 2024, what are the consequences for the Movement? With post-capitalists identifying producer co-operatives as a potential successor to corporate capitalism, it is useful to consider the current health of utopian and realistic conceptions of co-operation within the movement.

Commerce with a bit of ethics or ethics with a bit of commerce? The conundrum of British consumer co-operation 1863-1990

PurposeThis paper is concerned with the historical record of one business in the UK, which has long laid claim to the moral high ground in the conduct of its affairs – the amalgam of consumer co-operative business organisations, which eventually merged to become the Co-operative Group at the beginning of the 21st century. This paper aims to offer an assessment of the record of the British consumer co-operative movement’s efforts to abide by and promote its values and principles during the first 137 years of its existence (1863 to 1990).Design/methodology/approachThe paper is developed using largely qualitative research methods and a variety of sources. These include archival resources and business-historical materials such as committee minutes and correspondence. These materials have been complemented by several semi-structured recorded interviews with senior members of the Co-operative Group.FindingsThe authors develop several conclusions. First, where ethical choices were possible and no serious commercial interests were impaired, the co-operative movement could and usually did do its best to adhere to its principles. Second, in several instances, commercial interests did frequently trump ideals. Finally, the organisational structure of the movement made it very difficult to ensure that co-operative principles and values were adhered to.Originality/valueThis paper presents a unique case-study that examines the inherent tension between commerce and ethics in the co-operative movement.

A Useable Past, vol. 1. Victorian Agitator, George Jacob Holyoake: Co-operation as “This New Order of Life.”

A Useable Past, vol. 1. Victorian Agitator, George Jacob Holyoake: Co-operation as “This New Order of Life.”

2016 Labour History Review Essay Prize Winner

This article explores the support that existed for the Spanish Republic within the British Co-operative movement and asks what light this can shed on existing debates about the character of civil society and democratic engagement in the age of mass democracy. While much has been written about popular support for the Spanish Republic between 1936 and 1939, the Co-operative movement has remained somewhat in the shadows, and the movement’s response to the Spanish Civil War is yet to take centre stage. Similarly, while the British Co-operative movement played an important role within inter-war civil society, engaging many newly enfranchised working-class citizens with the democratic concerns of the day, studies of Britain’s inter-war civic culture have tended to focus on the middle classes, and the Co-operative movement has been overlooked. With a particular focus on the movement’s journals, and on the published ‘letters to the editor’, which reveal how ordinary co-operators engaged with ‘Spain’, the article examines how co-operators framed the Spanish Civil War in reference to the wider threat of fascism to their democratic and internationalist movement. It looks at how co-operators debated the issue of non-intervention; the dilemma the war posed for many pacifists within the movement; and the objections of many Catholic co-operators to the movement’s support for the Spanish Republic. Finally, it explores what co-operators did in practice at the local level in terms of raising awareness and aid. Ultimately, the article sheds light on the ways in which newly enfranchised working-class and female citizens participated in a rich democratic culture in 1930s Britain, in what was an unprecedented display of international solidarity.

Experiments in industrial democracy: an historical assessment of the Leicestershire boot and shoe co-operative co-partnership movement

State-socialist academics have been highly sceptical of worker co-operatives. Following the Webbs’ classic studies, they assume that capitalist market competition renders them either inefficient or undemocratic. The experience of the British co-operative co-partnership (COCP) movement, from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century, suggests a more optimistic reading, with implications for future alternative forms of work organization. COCP worker co-operatives were long-lived and participative, while advancing other social goals, such as good wages and working conditions, union membership and better housing. This article introduces the theory of COCP, stressing the stakeholder model and the predominance of employee representatives. Next, I establish Leicestershire as a major regional centre for both shoemaking and COCP, linked to the wider institutions of consumer co-operation. Six co-operatives are discussed: three Leicester city societies, Equity, Anchor and Self-Help; and three village societies, Barwell Sperope, Glenfield Progress and Sileby Excelsior. The article concludes that footwear COCP was a relatively successful small-scale endeavour, not subject to the fatal contradictions predicted by the Webbs. The movement died out because the bureaucratic ‘spirit of the age’ in the British co-operative and wider labour movement, turned against these initiatives from below, which therefore failed to rejuvenate.

‘The Curse of the Co-ops’: Co-operation, the Mass Press and the Market in Interwar Britain

Abstract Though it continues to be neglected by historians, the British Co-operative movement had 6.5 million members in the early 1930s. The movement’s phenomenal success inevitably brought it into conflict with both private capitalists and government, who sought to contain co-operators’ ambitions. The movement’s ideologues proclaimed that the great lesson of the Depression was that markets ought to be regulated by the democratic will of the people and that co-operative success proved that this was both practicable and possible. This article assesses the threat that co-operation posed to economic and business elites in this period, highlighting particularly co-operators’ critique of the myth of the ‘free’ market and their fears concerning the rapid post-war growth of combines and syndicates. It explores co-operators’ thwarted attempt to regulate markets in the interest of working-class shoppers by means of the Consumers’ Council Bill after 1929 and then goes on to discuss the ‘penal’ taxation imposed on the Co-operative movement as a kind of disciplinary measure by the National Government in 1933. The role of the mass-circulation press provides a vital thread in the story throughout, for the anti-co-operative ‘crusade’ was fervently taken up by the press barons, Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Rothermere, who used all the powers at their disposal to try to extinguish the largest democratic movement of consumers Britain had ever had.

Retrieving the Co-operative Value-Based Leadership Model of Terry Thomas

The paper documents the post-war retrenchment and failure of the post-war British Consumer Co-operative Movement. In contrast to the general failure one CEO, Terry Thomas stands out both for his success in co-operative rebranding and returning to profitability the UK Co-operative Bank and because he alone amongst the top echelons of the Co-operative Groups Management based his strategies on a clearly articulated philosophy based on his understanding of the values and purpose of the co-operative movement rooted in its historical traditions grounded in the writings and achievements of Robert Owen, The paper goes on to provide a case study of the bank’s process of transformation from loss-making subsidiary to the first positive co-operative national brand in the post-war period of its history. The author argues that lack of appropriate vision based on the founding values and purposes of the Co-operative Movement is the principal reason for the management’s and governance failures that have beset the UK Co-operative Group. Instead of using the past to help in understanding the present and planning for the future, the UK Co-operative Group Leadership ignored it or worse used the past successes to congratulate itself and disguise its manifest failures. In this, they were supported by an uncritical Co-operative Union (later renamed Co-operatives UK). Davis argues large co-operatives cannot be managed by a civil service responsible to an elected board. Co-operatives need a servant-leadership model of professional management dedicated to the transformational goals set by the founders of the co-operative movement. This needs a radical rethink and promotion of co-operative management education and a dedicated executive recruitment that seeks out value-based professionals whose attitudes and values are compatible with Co-operative values, ownership and purpose.

The Co-operative Movement in Britain: From Crisis to “Renaissance,” 1950–2010

Between 1950 and 2010, the British co-operative movement faced a series of commercial, structural, and corporate governance crises. Having pioneered many of the features of modern large-scale retailing since its origins in the mid-nineteenth century, from the 1950s the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) and the retail cooperative societies it served experienced plummeting market share, continued internecine rivalries, and increasing marginalization. In the early twenty-first century, however, co-operatives improved their market share and experienced a “Renaissance” in commercial fortunes despite continued fierce competition in food retailing. As yet there has been little exploration of the nature of this turnaround and the ways in which the once-foundering co-operative business model was re-engineered.Drawing on new research into the CWS (renamed The Co-operative Group in 2001), this article provides a historical analysis of the movement’s decline and revival. As the article details, from the 1950s significant efforts were made to reform CWS and the movement as a whole. However, co-operatives were slow to adapt to the changing business environment, hampered by dysfunctional organizational dynamics that constrained structural change and limited efforts to compete with private retail multiples. Following an unsuccessful takeover bid for CWS in 1997, co-operative opinion coalesced around the need for change. In the final section, the authors analyze the factors underpinning the “Renaissance,” focusing on both organizational innovations and the reassertion of core values and principles on which co-operation had been built. This provides a fascinating illustration of how a business can respond effectively to internal and external challenges, yet retain its fundamental character.

Building the Wholesale: The development of the English CWS and British co-operative business 1863–90

The English Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS), established in 1863, emerged in the nineteenth century as a key component of the British co-operative movement, selling to retail societies many of the commodities they sold on to their members and customers. But the CWS had to compete with private wholesalers in supplying retail societies, a situation which made the CWS’ relationship with the wider movement quite problematic. This article explores the establishment and development of the CWS during the first quarter century of its existence, and the strategies it employed to maximise its trade with societies, which included major involvement in manufacturing, and the development of global commercial activity. It is argued that in contrast with the picture of British enterprise offered by such commentators as Chandler, the CWS was in many respects a highly efficient organisation for its time, which successfully developed its role in the quite dysfunctional federation which was the co-operative movement. Indeed, it is argued that the CWS achieved a level of organisational and managerial sophistication which would not be seen in most British non-co-operative business until well into the twentieth century.

Paternalistic Consumer Co-operatives in Rural England, 1870–1930

AbstractThe British co-operative movement is associated mainly with industrial areas. Where consumer co-operatives existed in the countryside they were located in market towns and formed by rural trade unions, especially railwaymen, occasionally quarrymen or farmworkers. Yet the Co-operative Union membership encompassed a significant number of small single village societies founded by paternalistic gentry.This paper draws on examples in Shropshire, East Yorkshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire, to offer an account and explanation of the never before studied, paternalistic co-operatives. Recruiting estate workers and farm labourers, individual country squires showed themselves capable of using a co-operative ideology and framework, usually associated with the labour movement, to achieve very different and paternalistic goals. The relationship between these paternalistic village societies and the wider co-operative movement, both locally and nationally, is discussed, including the company paternalism of the Co-operative Wholesale Society's own farming operations. A comparison with the ‘Blue co-ops’ of the Lancashire Conservative dominated cotton spinners’ union is also made. The paper concludes that the failure of paternalistic co-operatives was part of the post Great War revival of rural cultural conservatism, linked to the effects of agricultural depression.

The Co-operative Movement and Communities in Britain, 1914-1960: Minding Their Own Business. By Nicole Robertson.

This thematically structured book about the British co-operative movement is a welcome addition to the field of co-operative studies and historical studies in general. The themes covered in the book are: ‘the impact of the movement on the economic and recreational lives of its members; consumption and consumer issues; and the role of the co-operative movement played within the labour movement’ (p. 11). Geographically we travel from the capital to mining communities in Wales into the Midlands and up to Scotland. The eight retail societies studied reflects, according to the author, both the general development of a consumer co-operative movement in Britain and the variations in character that was the outcome of interaction between central and local levels within the movement. Besides writing a history about co-operative developments, Robertson also wishes to use the co-operative material to tell us something about community life in a number of villages, towns, and cities in times of war, boom, depression, and prosperity in Britain.

PRO BONO PUBLICO: THE CHIPPING NORTON CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY, 1866-1968

Consumer co-operation, for many years a ‘poor relation’ within the family of business and social history (Purvis I987: 4), is now receiving greater acknowledgement and recent research has done much to enhance understanding of the evolution of Britain’s most successful sphere of mutual enterprise. Yet co-operative societies were ‘deeply rooted within their local environments, and social profile, ideology and cultural life could differ significantly between societies’ (Gurney I996: 24). Beneath a veneer of common purpose, the British co-operative movement has encompassed a diversity of experience and it is unwise to pre-judge the general picture before all the jigsaw pieces have been viewed. This article examines one society based in the Oxfordshire market town of Chipping Norton, and seeks to demonstrate that accurate portrayal of the movement as a whole must acknowledge the differences as well as the similarities that exist across its constituent parts.

The British co-operative movement film catalogue

The British co-operative movement film catalogue

STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF AGRICULTURAL CO‐OPERATIVES IN BRITAIN

The theory of the behaviour of the co‐operative firm has greatly advanced in recent years though this has not been accompanied by a major resurgence of empirical study. This paper is aimed at a basic investigation of some of the structural features of the British cooperative movement over the period 1975‐82. Using various concentration measures familiar in industrial economics it draws a sharp contrast between the requisite and marketing sides. It then focuses on economies of scale using Stigler's survivor technique concluding that there is little evidence of their existence in either sector. Diversification of activity is also considered, where again a contrast is evident. The paper concludes with a note on the policy relevance of the analysis.

Co-Operators and Politics – a Rejoinder

Central to Professor Pollard's “Reflections on a Re-consideration” is the contention that in 1917 Britain's co-operators decided to enter electoral politics as a result of the acceleration of long-run economic and social change. This decision, it is argued, emerged naturally from the steady prewar growth in class-consciousness established by secular shifts in the fabric of Britain's economy and society. We can agree that there is some evidence of a slow growth of class-consciousness before 1914, but not that this should have as its “natural” outcome the establishment of a political party by the British co-operative movement. It remains my contention that this departure was principally the result of the post-1914 experience of British co-operators.

THE BRITISH CO‐OPERATIVE MOVEMENT SINCE THE INDEPENDENT COMMISSION

Annals of Public and Cooperative EconomicsVolume 35, Issue 4 p. 251-263 THE BRITISH CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT SINCE THE INDEPENDENT COMMISSION Desmond Flanagan, Desmond FlanaganSearch for more papers by this author Desmond Flanagan, Desmond FlanaganSearch for more papers by this author First published: October 1964 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8292.1964.tb00093.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume35, Issue4October 1964Pages 251-263 RelatedInformation

The British Co-Operative Movement

After a brief description of the early history of the Co-operative movement, the author turns to the Rochdale Pioneers and the foundations they lay for a co-operative community of a non-Owenite type.

The British Co-operative Movement. By Jack Bailey. (Hutchinson's University Library: Politics.) London: Hutchinson and Company, 1955; New York: Longmans, Green and Company. Pp. 180. Text edition, $1.80; trade edition, $2.40.

The British Co-operative Movement. By Jack Bailey. (Hutchinson's University Library: Politics.) London: Hutchinson and Company, 1955; New York: Longmans, Green and Company. Pp. 180. Text edition, 2.40. - Volume 16 Issue 3

The British Co-operative Movement in a Socialist Society.

The British Co-operative Movement in a Socialist Society.