Cooperation in Barlick
Posted: 23 Apr 2012, 07:08
Cooperation in Barlick
It’s Thursday the 2nd of may and as Jack and I walked through Rainhall Road car park in the rain this morning I reflected on the fact that later today it would be full of the stallholder’s vans who will be running the French Market in Town Square this weekend. Being a historian and also aware of current affairs I considered the contrast between the French Market as a symbol of co-operation in Europe and the proposed Constitutional Treaty as a blunt instrument forged by Brussels to tell us what was good for us and the reaction it is provoking. It’s my opinion that any closer union founded on trade and enterprise is more likely to be successful than one forced on us by legislation.
Of course these are not new ideas, nor do they apply only to European enterprises. By a happy coincidence, the French Market will take place on Town Square which was originally the site of the headquarters of the Barnoldswick Industrial Co-operative Society. If we go for a bit of a wander through the roots of the co-operative principle we might find that there are some common threads between what was happening in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Europe, the effects this had on thought in Britain and how, in the end, it translated to Barnoldswick and became an important factor in the town’s history.
I immediately run into a problem because when I look for the earliest stirrings of self-help and independent thought I think of the Black Death, the Peasant’s Revolt and the collapse of Feudalism. I have to remind myself that I am writing for the local paper and not starting on a synthesis of the history of thought in Europe. However, as I have been heard to say before, given the choice, I will always assume that my readers have enough curiosity and intelligence to be able to recognise the value of understanding what the forces were that shaped our town, they were not always local, single-cause or modern.
The major factor which controlled the social structure of England until the mid 14th century was deference to the local lord. This carried with it responsibilities of service and in return the lord lent his vassals just enough land to enable them to survive by peasant farming and pay whatever taxes and rents were demanded of them. The system was based on there always being a surplus of labour encouraged enough to breed but kept in check by regular episodes of famine. The Black Death reduced the working population by half, destroyed the surplus and put power and the possibility of independence into the hands of the workers because without them society couldn’t function.
This transformation didn’t happen overnight but spawned wage labour, the small entrepreneurs who started the Domestic Textile industry, individual land ownership and eventually, with the advent of technology led by the increasing demands of the evolution of industry and the factory system, produced more egalitarian ways of managing society, including modern political systems.
We need to look at a Welshman called Robert Owen, born in 1771 in Newtown, by 1790 he had worked his way up to become manager of Robert Dale’s cotton factory in Manchester where he was the first man to use American Sea-Island cotton as opposed to Indian fibre. He was regarded as one of the most competent and enterprising men in the industry. He was also a brilliant thinker, had seen the revolution in France, read the latest political philosophy and realised that if the new factory system was to develop its full potential there had to be a massive shift in the social status and physical well-being of the workers. They could not be regarded simply as factory-fodder, they had to be given a stake in the future.
In 1794 he moved to New Lanark in Ayrshire and with partners took over a large mill formerly owned by David Dale, whose daughter he married. He ran the enterprise on principles of democracy, fair wages and the best living conditions that could be supplied. By 1825 the New Lanark system had failed because Owen was a man seen to be moving too fast by the Establishment who recognised the genesis of a political movement when they saw one. For the last 25 years of his life until he died in 1858, Owen lectured and wrote on his belief that that individual character is moulded by environment and can be improved in a society based upon cooperation and that what was needed was transformation and not reform of the lot of the working class. By then his ideas had taken root in all sorts of strange places.
In 1844 28 working men gathered together to set up the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society and opened a co-op shop on Toad Lane in Rochdale. They sold basic items such as flour, butter, tea and candles, but it was how they ran the business that made them different. Their concern was firstly to make sure that as far as possible they sold only unadulterated food of the highest quality and secondly to act as a true democracy in which every customer was a member of the society and shared in the profits. The enterprise prospered beyond their wildest dreams and was copied all over Britain.
In 1854 the principles of the Co-operative movement had reached Barnoldswick. Atkinson, in his history ‘Old Barlick’ says that about 24 members started the Barnoldswick Society in a rented cottage in Newtown, now Yvonne’s Lingerie shop. They graduated through three other shops and in 1870 built their own store at the bottom of Manchester Road in what is now the Strategy Bar. It was an idea whose time had come and became a strong social influence in the town. Next week we’ll look at how it prospered into the 20th century and how the principle evolved beyond retailing into banking, savings and even into the weaving sheds.
The Co-operative movement was an idea that arrived bang on time. Because people’s time and ability to travel was minimal, most shopped either in the town centre or at the numerous corner shops that had sprung up all over the town as it grew. In those days in the second half of the 19th century there was no such thing as the Welfare State. If you hadn’t got a large family to support you or a nice little nest egg put by, old age meant extreme poverty at best and Parish Relief or the workhouse at worst. The more provident among the population saved hard, bought their own house and perhaps another one to rent so they had some capital and income when they could no longer work. Some built whole rows of houses. You can usually tell these because one house is bigger and of better quality than the others, this was the landlord’s house.
Many built a shop onto their property. This was employment for the wife and younger children and a useful provider of income if let out. I’ve never tried to count the number of corner shops in Barlick but I’d be surprised if there were less than fifty.
Not all these shops were run well. Small stocks and low sales meant stale goods. The search for profit and lack of competition meant high prices and low quality. In many cases there was active adulteration of food to improve its looks or make it go further. There is little doubt that between 1800 and 1850 food adulteration was practiced on a large scale.
We know much about this because of a book published in 1820 called ‘A Treatise on the Adulteration of food and Culinary Poisons’ By a German called Accum which was so popular it sold out in a month and went through four editions in two years. On the cover was a quotation from 2 Kings, Chapter 4, verse 40; ‘There is DEATH in the pot’. In it he described the use of poisons by the London brewers in the manufacture of their beer, the collecting and drying of Blackthorn leaves to adulterate tea, Gloucestershire cheese coloured with red lead, cream thickened with flour, pastries coloured with highly poisonous compounds of copper and lead and many other practices. The one that really disgusted me was the addition of crushed snails to fresh milk to make it froth when poured into the jug, this frothing was seen as a sign of freshness. These revelations provoked such animosity towards Accum that eventually he returned to Germany, a bitter and disillusioned man.
Edward Smith’s records published in the Journal of the Society of Arts in 1864 of the diet of Lancashire mill workers showed that they lived largely on bread, oatmeal, bacon, some butter, black treacle and tea and coffee. By 1880 jams had made their appearance but were made of the cheapest fruit and vegetable pulp, the only thing that made them palatable was the sugar. There was one good augury for the future, on February 2nd 1880 the SS Strathleven arrived in London with 40 tons of Australian beef and mutton refrigerated in her hold and this was the start of the frozen meat trade.
Notwithstanding all these faults in the trade, the workers had to eat and food retailing was a very profitable business. It’s instructive to note that much of the start-up capital of the shed companies and individual manufacturers can be traced back in part to the retail trades. The workers were paying out a lot of money for bad food and this was what the Rochdale Pioneers in 1844 had realised and capitalised on. By 1854 the 28 original members in the cottage on Newtown had jumped on the bandwagon.
Cooperation in Barlick took hold quickly. Any retailer that who promised the best quality at reasonable prices was going to do well but it was the concept of mutual ownership that clinched the matter. All the profits of the business were re-distributed to the members on a very simple basis, every time you made a purchase you gave your Co-op number, this was noted in the accounts and twice a year a dividend was paid on the basis of so much for every pound you had spent. In ‘A Way of Life Gone By’ it is noted that in 1907 the divi was 3/7 in the pound and 3/2 the next year. The current dividend card at the Pioneer superstore pays one new penny in the pound, the equivalent in 1907 was over 18 times as much. Many people used their Divi money to finance the annual holiday.
Not everyone shopped at the Co-op, many felt more comfortable in their old ways with a shop book and buying on credit from someone they knew personally but even so the Co-operative enterprise grew. Apart from the early premises there was the Central branch on Manchester Road, No 1 branch on Co-operative Street, No 2 branch on Mosley Street. No 3 on the corner of Gisburn Road and Skipton Road. No 4 on Gisburn Road on the corner of Fernbank Avenue. No. 5 opposite Bankfield Shed and in 1907 the magnificent headquarters on Albert Road was built and extended in 1923/24.
In 1989 I got word that the interior of the Albert Road building was being stripped prior to demolition. The shop was still trading but about to move to the old station site. I blagged my way in and did some pictures, one of them was of a commemorative plaque in the offices which recorded the opening of the completed building on Saturday April 12th 1924. It noted that the first phase was opened in 1907. The president of the society was Thomas Uttley, vice president Walter Farrar, committee members William Baxter, Daniel Brennand, Arthur Eastwood, John Fielden, George Hartley, Eli Holt, William Parker, Albert Smith, C. Stockdale and James Turner. The original architect was G Bowker of Colne and at completion A Hartley of Skipton.
At this point the Society was at the height of its powers with almost 2000 members and next week we’ll have a look at some of the influence it had on the town.
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 have 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.
Ken Wilson’s book ‘My Days are Swifter than a Weaver’s Shuttle’, this is based on the diary of Richard Ryley for 1862, a period of great change in Barlick, prosperity for some, but short time for others. Richard was a cotton weaver working for William Bracewell (Billycock) most likely at Butts Mill which was built in 1845. The entry for January 1st 1862 illustrates the great difference between then and now; he writes; ‘At work all day. In the evening attended the Co-operative Director’s meeting’. Only twelve words but if I’m not careful I could construct a whole article out of them!
It’s Thursday the 2nd of may and as Jack and I walked through Rainhall Road car park in the rain this morning I reflected on the fact that later today it would be full of the stallholder’s vans who will be running the French Market in Town Square this weekend. Being a historian and also aware of current affairs I considered the contrast between the French Market as a symbol of co-operation in Europe and the proposed Constitutional Treaty as a blunt instrument forged by Brussels to tell us what was good for us and the reaction it is provoking. It’s my opinion that any closer union founded on trade and enterprise is more likely to be successful than one forced on us by legislation.
Of course these are not new ideas, nor do they apply only to European enterprises. By a happy coincidence, the French Market will take place on Town Square which was originally the site of the headquarters of the Barnoldswick Industrial Co-operative Society. If we go for a bit of a wander through the roots of the co-operative principle we might find that there are some common threads between what was happening in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Europe, the effects this had on thought in Britain and how, in the end, it translated to Barnoldswick and became an important factor in the town’s history.
I immediately run into a problem because when I look for the earliest stirrings of self-help and independent thought I think of the Black Death, the Peasant’s Revolt and the collapse of Feudalism. I have to remind myself that I am writing for the local paper and not starting on a synthesis of the history of thought in Europe. However, as I have been heard to say before, given the choice, I will always assume that my readers have enough curiosity and intelligence to be able to recognise the value of understanding what the forces were that shaped our town, they were not always local, single-cause or modern.
The major factor which controlled the social structure of England until the mid 14th century was deference to the local lord. This carried with it responsibilities of service and in return the lord lent his vassals just enough land to enable them to survive by peasant farming and pay whatever taxes and rents were demanded of them. The system was based on there always being a surplus of labour encouraged enough to breed but kept in check by regular episodes of famine. The Black Death reduced the working population by half, destroyed the surplus and put power and the possibility of independence into the hands of the workers because without them society couldn’t function.
This transformation didn’t happen overnight but spawned wage labour, the small entrepreneurs who started the Domestic Textile industry, individual land ownership and eventually, with the advent of technology led by the increasing demands of the evolution of industry and the factory system, produced more egalitarian ways of managing society, including modern political systems.
We need to look at a Welshman called Robert Owen, born in 1771 in Newtown, by 1790 he had worked his way up to become manager of Robert Dale’s cotton factory in Manchester where he was the first man to use American Sea-Island cotton as opposed to Indian fibre. He was regarded as one of the most competent and enterprising men in the industry. He was also a brilliant thinker, had seen the revolution in France, read the latest political philosophy and realised that if the new factory system was to develop its full potential there had to be a massive shift in the social status and physical well-being of the workers. They could not be regarded simply as factory-fodder, they had to be given a stake in the future.
In 1794 he moved to New Lanark in Ayrshire and with partners took over a large mill formerly owned by David Dale, whose daughter he married. He ran the enterprise on principles of democracy, fair wages and the best living conditions that could be supplied. By 1825 the New Lanark system had failed because Owen was a man seen to be moving too fast by the Establishment who recognised the genesis of a political movement when they saw one. For the last 25 years of his life until he died in 1858, Owen lectured and wrote on his belief that that individual character is moulded by environment and can be improved in a society based upon cooperation and that what was needed was transformation and not reform of the lot of the working class. By then his ideas had taken root in all sorts of strange places.
In 1844 28 working men gathered together to set up the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society and opened a co-op shop on Toad Lane in Rochdale. They sold basic items such as flour, butter, tea and candles, but it was how they ran the business that made them different. Their concern was firstly to make sure that as far as possible they sold only unadulterated food of the highest quality and secondly to act as a true democracy in which every customer was a member of the society and shared in the profits. The enterprise prospered beyond their wildest dreams and was copied all over Britain.
In 1854 the principles of the Co-operative movement had reached Barnoldswick. Atkinson, in his history ‘Old Barlick’ says that about 24 members started the Barnoldswick Society in a rented cottage in Newtown, now Yvonne’s Lingerie shop. They graduated through three other shops and in 1870 built their own store at the bottom of Manchester Road in what is now the Strategy Bar. It was an idea whose time had come and became a strong social influence in the town. Next week we’ll look at how it prospered into the 20th century and how the principle evolved beyond retailing into banking, savings and even into the weaving sheds.
The Co-operative movement was an idea that arrived bang on time. Because people’s time and ability to travel was minimal, most shopped either in the town centre or at the numerous corner shops that had sprung up all over the town as it grew. In those days in the second half of the 19th century there was no such thing as the Welfare State. If you hadn’t got a large family to support you or a nice little nest egg put by, old age meant extreme poverty at best and Parish Relief or the workhouse at worst. The more provident among the population saved hard, bought their own house and perhaps another one to rent so they had some capital and income when they could no longer work. Some built whole rows of houses. You can usually tell these because one house is bigger and of better quality than the others, this was the landlord’s house.
Many built a shop onto their property. This was employment for the wife and younger children and a useful provider of income if let out. I’ve never tried to count the number of corner shops in Barlick but I’d be surprised if there were less than fifty.
Not all these shops were run well. Small stocks and low sales meant stale goods. The search for profit and lack of competition meant high prices and low quality. In many cases there was active adulteration of food to improve its looks or make it go further. There is little doubt that between 1800 and 1850 food adulteration was practiced on a large scale.
We know much about this because of a book published in 1820 called ‘A Treatise on the Adulteration of food and Culinary Poisons’ By a German called Accum which was so popular it sold out in a month and went through four editions in two years. On the cover was a quotation from 2 Kings, Chapter 4, verse 40; ‘There is DEATH in the pot’. In it he described the use of poisons by the London brewers in the manufacture of their beer, the collecting and drying of Blackthorn leaves to adulterate tea, Gloucestershire cheese coloured with red lead, cream thickened with flour, pastries coloured with highly poisonous compounds of copper and lead and many other practices. The one that really disgusted me was the addition of crushed snails to fresh milk to make it froth when poured into the jug, this frothing was seen as a sign of freshness. These revelations provoked such animosity towards Accum that eventually he returned to Germany, a bitter and disillusioned man.
Edward Smith’s records published in the Journal of the Society of Arts in 1864 of the diet of Lancashire mill workers showed that they lived largely on bread, oatmeal, bacon, some butter, black treacle and tea and coffee. By 1880 jams had made their appearance but were made of the cheapest fruit and vegetable pulp, the only thing that made them palatable was the sugar. There was one good augury for the future, on February 2nd 1880 the SS Strathleven arrived in London with 40 tons of Australian beef and mutton refrigerated in her hold and this was the start of the frozen meat trade.
Notwithstanding all these faults in the trade, the workers had to eat and food retailing was a very profitable business. It’s instructive to note that much of the start-up capital of the shed companies and individual manufacturers can be traced back in part to the retail trades. The workers were paying out a lot of money for bad food and this was what the Rochdale Pioneers in 1844 had realised and capitalised on. By 1854 the 28 original members in the cottage on Newtown had jumped on the bandwagon.
Cooperation in Barlick took hold quickly. Any retailer that who promised the best quality at reasonable prices was going to do well but it was the concept of mutual ownership that clinched the matter. All the profits of the business were re-distributed to the members on a very simple basis, every time you made a purchase you gave your Co-op number, this was noted in the accounts and twice a year a dividend was paid on the basis of so much for every pound you had spent. In ‘A Way of Life Gone By’ it is noted that in 1907 the divi was 3/7 in the pound and 3/2 the next year. The current dividend card at the Pioneer superstore pays one new penny in the pound, the equivalent in 1907 was over 18 times as much. Many people used their Divi money to finance the annual holiday.
Not everyone shopped at the Co-op, many felt more comfortable in their old ways with a shop book and buying on credit from someone they knew personally but even so the Co-operative enterprise grew. Apart from the early premises there was the Central branch on Manchester Road, No 1 branch on Co-operative Street, No 2 branch on Mosley Street. No 3 on the corner of Gisburn Road and Skipton Road. No 4 on Gisburn Road on the corner of Fernbank Avenue. No. 5 opposite Bankfield Shed and in 1907 the magnificent headquarters on Albert Road was built and extended in 1923/24.
In 1989 I got word that the interior of the Albert Road building was being stripped prior to demolition. The shop was still trading but about to move to the old station site. I blagged my way in and did some pictures, one of them was of a commemorative plaque in the offices which recorded the opening of the completed building on Saturday April 12th 1924. It noted that the first phase was opened in 1907. The president of the society was Thomas Uttley, vice president Walter Farrar, committee members William Baxter, Daniel Brennand, Arthur Eastwood, John Fielden, George Hartley, Eli Holt, William Parker, Albert Smith, C. Stockdale and James Turner. The original architect was G Bowker of Colne and at completion A Hartley of Skipton.
At this point the Society was at the height of its powers with almost 2000 members and next week we’ll have a look at some of the influence it had on the town.
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 have 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.
Ken Wilson’s book ‘My Days are Swifter than a Weaver’s Shuttle’, this is based on the diary of Richard Ryley for 1862, a period of great change in Barlick, prosperity for some, but short time for others. Richard was a cotton weaver working for William Bracewell (Billycock) most likely at Butts Mill which was built in 1845. The entry for January 1st 1862 illustrates the great difference between then and now; he writes; ‘At work all day. In the evening attended the Co-operative Director’s meeting’. Only twelve words but if I’m not careful I could construct a whole article out of them!