Page 116 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

The Story of the C.W.S. —
last in creating towns and villages within an urban county. This
development has taken place particularly within the last fifty or
sixty years, and during this time endless attempts have resulted in
certain of these districts now being represented by large and stable
societies. The new movement began after the renascence of
co-operation in the North. Tidings of the Lancashire and Yorkshire
successes were spread over the London hinterland by the metro-
politan leaders, with the result that the Ust of co-operative societies
published by the Co-operator for June, 1862, included 28 London
societies, albeit they possessed between them only some 3,400
members, and their previous quarter's sales amounted to less than
£8,000. When districts were not sufficiently united the bond of
community was found in temperance organisations, in working
men's clubs, or in friendly societies. In one case a society was
formed in the City, chiefly by employees of wholesale houses
" which will afford us an opportunity of purchasing in the
first
markets." In another instance a society " on the plan of the
Rochdale Pioneers " was conceived by " several members of the
bookselling trade in Paternoster Row." More promising attempts
began among railwaymen, particularly at King's Cross, Paddington,
and Waterloo. These workers were in a position to obtam first-
hand information of industrial co-operation in Manchester and
Leeds, Gloucester and Swindon, Plymouth and Reading. The Civil
Service and Army and Navy Supply movement is separated from
democratic industrial co-operation by its principles and methods
and the class to which it appeals, yet by the storm which it aroused
in the seventies, and the criticism it brought to bear upon the then
mountainous London prices, it served to advertise co-operation,
both for possible adherents and sure enemies. Even the clergj'-,
most long suffering of mortals (in the persons of ill-paid curates),
eventually attempted a Clergy Co-operative Association.
The London store movement rapidly went on from its A B C
to the contemplation of federal wholesale trading. A correspondent
of the Go-operator, John Allen, of Paddington. raised the question in
"
October, 1861. He outhned a " Co-operative Wholesale Store
for London and the country. From Hackney Road another corre-
spondent replied in Napoleonic fashion, stating that "I am about
starting a Central Co-operative Union to manufacture and purchase
wholesale for all the stores who will join." A Co-operator of December,
1862, amiounced that " six societies at this end of London " (Prescott
Street) were forming a wholesale bakery.
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