By the beginning of the twentieth century the Co-op could supply all your needs from the cradle to the grave. Apart from groceries, they sold haberdashery, clothes, furniture and even funerals. They were agents for the Co-operative Bank and would accept savings or give loans. Many a family event such as a holiday, wedding or funeral was paid for through the Co-op. The Co-operative Insurance Society is, even today, one of the largest insurance companies in the UK.
I’m not sure when the first branch on Co-operative Street was built but in 1900 a large extension containing the Co-operative Hall was added onto the end nearest the railway. This was used for weekly dances and private functions until it finally fell into disuse, it was a squash club for a while run by Billy Grace and finally housed the Mayfair School of Dancing. At the time of writing it is empty awaiting redevelopment as flats. In an article in the Craven Herald of 5th of February 1932 there was a report of a meeting of the Barnoldswick Co-operative Society management committee which agreed, by 35 votes to 18 to allow the Public Assistance Committee to use it as a centre for administration of the Means Test. What fascinates me about this is that there were at least 53 members of that committee plus the chairman. You’d have a job getting that number onto a committee today.
Emma Clark told me that up until 1900 there was a public room in the old Co-op headquarters at the bottom of Manchester Road as well as the grocery shop, a greengrocer’s and a clogger’s shop. In 1907 her family moved into a house in the newly built Ribblesdale Terrace on Gisburn Road below Damhead. She said that these houses were built by the Co-op. They also built half of Denton Street and Ings Avenue, known at the time as the ‘Co-op Villas’.
Again, I’m not sure of the date of the build but the Accrington brick buildings on West Close Road where Garlick’s have their repair shop now was built by the Co-op as stables and a slaughterhouse. The Co-op were also one of the biggest coal merchants in the town based on the coal yard at the station. One thing I have never come across is any evidence of them having a bakery in Barnoldswick but I’m pretty certain they would have, perhaps one of my readers can enlighten me.
The Barnoldswick Industrial Cooperative Society was an independent organisation and this applied to the other 1,464 small towns which had independent societies. All these were affiliated to the Co-operative Wholesale Society which had its headquarters in Balloon Street Manchester. They ran large enterprises such as farms, milk processing plants and factories making everything from biscuits and soap to shoes and clothing.
By 1950 it became obvious that the fragmented organisation that was the old Co-op was losing ground. Many small societies amalgamated and the organisation went through a series of reorganisations which culminated in 2000 with the original CWS buying out the breakaway Co-operative Retail Society and re-entering the retail market as a fully fledged supermarket chain which today has an annual turnover in excess of £40millions. They re-introduced a form of dividend and individual membership and entered the 21st century as a major player in British retailing.
Meanwhile, the principle of co-operation had spread into many other areas of life in politics, industry and society as a whole. This happened not only in Britain but all over the world. In the ‘Hungry Thirties’ when manufacturers were falling like flies due to the depression of trade cooperation had a new lease of life in the rise of the ‘self-help’ sheds. When R W Nutter failed in Earby in 1932 Sough Bridge Mill restarted under the title Nutters (Kelbrook) Ltd as a cooperative enterprise financed by the weavers themselves. Fred Inman described how when the Nutter interests collapsed at Grove, part of Albion and at Sough Bridge, the weavers paid £2 a loom and restarted as self-help. Percy Lowe, who had trained at Nutters at Grove Shed was the leading light and eventually he became manager for Johnsons who took over some of the self help interests and concentrated in The Big Mill.
In 1935 Sough Bridge reconstituted itself as a new company; ‘Kelbrook Mill Company Limited’ later changed to ‘’Kelbrook Bridge Manufacturing Company’ and functioned as a co-operative shed until the beginning of WW2. There were self-help shops all over East Lancashire. Victor Hedges of Proctor and Proctor the Burnley accountants told me there were many of them. He said that in some mills there were even individual tenants who were self-help. One such ran in Whitefield Mill in Nelson. In his opinion it was a good idea and usually they were very well managed.
Even today, wherever there is a small business vital to a community which is failing, new co-operatives are being formed, often with advice from CWS HQ. Everything from grocer’s shops and filling stations to amalgamations of farmers who are uniting to give themselves more bargaining power. ‘In Unity there is Strength’ has always been a good motto and nowhere was it more successful than in the movement formed in 1844 in Rochdale. Perhaps in these days of global giants dominating trade world-wide it would be as well to remember the principle and use it to good effect to maintain local independence.
Co-operation was a good principle and served Barnoldswick well. It was a major influence on the town for over 100 years and to go back to my original theme, I thought of this when I went to the French Market on Friday and spent £15 on good cheese and mustard. The core idea behind what we used to call ‘The Common Market’ is really not much different than the old Co-op principle. I have a funny feeling that the 1854 pioneers in Barlick, whilst regretting the fact that their magnificent headquarters has been demolished, would like the idea of a wider European co-operation as evidenced by the French Market. What a pity the politicians can’t keep it that simple, perhaps we would find it easier to make up our minds about an enlarged European Community.
SCG/06 June 2005
1047 words.
The French Market on Town Square, cooperation in full swing?
