Page 289 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

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Pioneer Flour Milling
Others were distrustful
When the Rochdale District Com Mill Society had been at work some four
or five years, a lodge (of a sick and burial society) in the town voted to invest
some money in the mill, and appointed three representatives to take the same.
They took it, but when they got there, and saw the committee of the mill, they
durst not leave the money; so they wont back to the lodge, and told them that
there were weavers sitting on the Corn Mill Society's committee, and that none
of the committee were rich men, so they had brought the money back to the
lodge, that it might be safer than in the hands of working men.
This lodge, however, decided that " weavers were as fit to be trusted
as bankers," and it sent fresh delegates with a larger sum of money.
Still more important, the housewives of Rochdale were faithful
The wife is mostly as good a supporter of the mill as her husband, generally
putting up \vith the flour when it was not so good as it ought to be, and often,
when she had a nice baking of bread, showing it to all neighbours and comers,
that they might be convinced what good flour the Com Mill Society was making.
Certainly, some husbands would find fault with the wife when the bread was not
good, and say she had spoiled the flour, to which some wives would reply, they
could bake as well as other people if they had the same flour, and that they
would not use the Com Mill Society's flour if they were to be grumbled at
because they could not make good bread out of bad flour.
The original Rochdale Corn Mill was a rented water mill at Holme,
on the way to Littleborough, but in 1856 the society spent £6,827
upon a mill of its own in Weir Street, Rochdale. During the cotton
famine this association was able to subscribe £10 weekly in rehef of
the unemployment, but its career both before and after that date
included many misfortunes. Yet on the entire working it was
able to show in 1889 a surplus of profits over losses of about
£160,000, a sum equal to an annual payment of 12^ per cent upon
the capital.
The Oldham Equitable Society was amongst the supporters of
the Rochdale mUl; but toward 1878 the members of that society
developed a desire for a mill in their own town. In this matter the
Equitable Society at the east end of Oldham joined hands with the
Industrial at the west, and the Star Corn Mill was the result. The
mill opened in 1870. It was partly refitted in 1883, but completely
burned do^vn in 1890. This disaster, although it cost the Star
Millers' Society some £3,400 beyond the amount recovered from the
insurance companies, really proved a blessing in disguise. It
enabled the society to rebuild the mill as an entirely modern
building and fit it with machinery of the same character. It is this
mill which is now in possession of the C.W.S. Like the Rochdale
and many other mills, the Star Mill eked out its local co-operative
Q 226