Page 132 - 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.
with Id., and every thousand of eggs also with Id., and the produce
from America and elsewhere at ordinary charges. The proceeds
would go to the fund, which was to be started with £2,000 from
the reserve fund. The Quarterly Meeting of August 16th, 1873,
despite some friendly questioning by Dr. John Watts, agreed. By
September, 1878, when the Committee had to remind delegates
of ancient history, "the Marine Insurance Department" had
accumulated over £13,000. When, in 1879, the s.s. Constantine
collided and went down in nine hundred feet of water with nearly
£600 worth of C.W.S. Danish butter on board, the monetary loss
was made good by the fund as an ordinary matter of business,
Subsequently other risks were covered, and greater accumulations
resulted, with the ultimate result that the C.W.S. has come to
undertake every form of co-operators' Insurance.

In these days, who:! flour must be as white as linen and as fine as
silk, and even a pound of peas come clad in a fancy package, there
should be no inherent difficulties for co-operative societies in the
most abstruse regions of the drapery trade. Circumstances were
diiTerent in the ruder times of the Pioneers. Hence, although they
started early, they proceeded slowly. Mr. Robertson, in the
admirable history of the Rochdale Pioneers written for the Rochdale
Congress of 1892, tells how the selling of draperies by modern
co-operators began in 1847 through a piece of spoiled lilac print
being thrown upon a working calico printer's hands. James Smithies,
" who had always an eye for business," suggested tliat the committee
might dispose of the piece of print in the store, and so recover for a
colleague the sum of which he had been mulcted. This coxirse was
taken and proved successful. In 1849 the business so commenced
had become a regular department. But it was decided " that they
—
should not provide a stock of fancy goods ' bobby-dazzlers —to
'
tempt working men's wives to indulge in unnecessary expense."
The Oldham Industrial Society, which dates from 1850, opened
its first drapery (and boot and shoe) shop in 1859—and one man
supplied either clogs or silk as was demanded. The Wholesale
Society was established for nearly ten years before it undertook the
general drapery trade. As we have seen, the first beginnings were
with blankets, while the selling of boots and shoes preceded the
supplying of drapery. The first long step was in 1873, when the
Committee reported to the May Quarterly Meeting that various
purchases of land, warehouses, and cottages in Garden Street and
98