Page 25 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

The Christian Socialists' Effort.

most people despised and rejected. The Christian Socialists meant
to glorify the Christian idea of brotherhood which they found at the
core of it; while, with equal force, they declared themselves not
Owenites.
It is natural and yet striking that these two widely-different
movements of working-class co-operators and middle-class church-
men soon discovered each other. Early in 1850, following some
conferences with London chartists and others, the Christian
Socialists organised themselves in a Society for the Promotion of
Working Men's Associations, with a Council of Promoters. When
Edward Vansittart Neale joined the Council very shortly afterwards,
the Northern co-operators were aheady in correspondence with the
new society. He may have perceived some immediate possibilities
of the Lancashire and Yorkshire beginning. At any rate, he brought
new ideas into the Council, and, as Hughes said, soon " forced the
running." At his own cost, and independently of the Council, he
founded the Central Co-operative Agency.
In the Co-operative Neivs for March 17th, 1877, the founder
stated that it consisted of two trustees, Hughes and himself, and of
a commercial firm of Le Chevalier, Woodin, Jones, and Co., to whom
capital was advanced at 5 per cent for conducting the business of
the agency. The new institution was located at 76, Charlotte Street,
London, W., and it opened for business on October 24th, 1850.
Mr. Woodin, it may be 9.dded, afterwards maintained a long and
honourable connection with the C.W.S. as its tea merchant. Mr.
Lloyd Jones, previously a disciple of Owen, remained for many
years a brilliant advocate of co-operation. Le Chevalier, according
to Holyoake, subsequently was found to have been secretly in the
pay of Napoleon III.; he dissociated himself from the agency
after a year's working, and attempted to establish a " Consumers'
Protection Association."
Judge Hughes, the co-trustee, speaking in Manchester in 1878,
declared that the agency was " an anticipation of the Wholesale
Society." As a matter of fact, its declared aims made it something
of a C.W.S. , a Co-operative Union, and a Labour Exchange in one.
An " Address to Trade Unions," printed in the Christian Socialist
in 1851, officially defined the centre as "a legal and financial
institution for aiding the formation of stores and associations, for
buying and selling on their behalf, and ultimately for organising
credit and interchange between them." Prominent among the
objects of the agency was that of counteracting adulteration and
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