Page 269 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

—

From Hall to Home,
When the C.W.S. bought the estate the hall was tenanted, and the
occupier enjoyed shooting and some hunting rights over the land.
" We had a strong impression then," Mr. Shillito told the delegates,
" that the exercise of this sporting privilege was inimical to the
development and cultivation of the land for fruit growing, and we
are fully convinced now that these pastimes are not congenial to
our agricultural and horticultural purposes. We have consequently
given the tenant notice to leave." This statement was made in
December, 1899, three and a half j'ears after the purchase. The
Committee recommended that the hall should be converted into a
convalescent home for co-operators. It would provide for perhaps
thirty beds, and the convalescents would be admitted at a small
charge. In the first quarter of the following year the Committee
proposed to set aside £10,000 out of the profits for enlarging,
adapting, and furnishing the home. The wave of prosperity in
which the nineteenth century closed was at its height. The C.W.S.
average dividend had risen from 2fd. in 1897 to 4d. (for the fiirst
time) in 1899, and this still had left a £60,000 surplus for the reserve
fund. Under these fortunate circumstances the proposal met with
a little criticism but no real opposition. The spirit which had
defeated the Mitchell Benevolent Fund proposals such a very few
years earher seemed to have died away. Secure of this munificent
provision, then, the Committee undertook the enlarging of the hall
to accommodate fifty persons. A new dining-room was added,
electric hght instaUed, a fireproof staircase placed outside the rear
of the buildmg, and the house and grounds in every detail made
thoroughly suitable for their purpose. On July 27th, 1901, the
home was opened by Mr. Shillito. "They were met," he said, " to
perform an unusual ceremony
It had been said by commercial men that those engaged in trade or
commerce could not enter into philanthropy without jeopardising their influence
as traders. He ventiu-ed to say that what they were inaugurating that day
would not in any degree minimise their influence as a large trading body.
Co-operators were a great democratic body, and they looked upon kindness and
benevolence to their kith and kin as a part of their duty, and it was in the
performance of that duty that they were opening out that home.

The present matron, Miss Twigg, was appointed to take charge of
what was then the first co-operative convalescent home south of
Scotland; for the Scottish co-operators already had established a
home on the Firth of Clyde. . . . The distance of Roden from
Newcastle had been commented upon in the North, and a movement
211