Page 323 - 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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At the Tobacco Factory.
common lodging-houses known as Charter Street, in Angel Meadow,
which is off Rochdale Road, rather less than ten minutes' walk from
Balloon Street. By the following May the factory, under its present
popular manager, Mr. Cragg, was at work and showing samples at
the Peterborough Congress exhibition. In 1902 a MTiter in the
Wheatsheaf described the business, and said:
The factory with which we are to deal holds the record among all C.W.S.
enterprises for rapid development and progress. Started four years ago last
May, it has outstripped all other C.W.S. factories in the enormous strides it
has taken each year. That a yearly trade of almost £300,000 should be
reached by one factory in four years, in a new branch of production, is the most
pleasing and striking testimony that can be offered as to the character of the
output and the ability of the management.

The £300,000 was half as much again as the total tobacco trade of
the C.W.S. in 1896. Writmg of the Angel Meadow district, the
Wheatsheaf a,ccount of 1902 continued:

The tobacco factory is in it—not of it. The workers come from other and
better-class districts. It is pleasing to know that the scene of their labours
has roused a sympathetic desire in the hearts of all of them to do a little to
better the state of things round about them. Some entertainments have been
given by the employees for the children and adults in the neighbourhood, and
open-air concerts on summer evenings are likely to be arranged for the present
season.
Eight years later, in 1910, a second account of the factory appeared
in the Wheatsheaf. The writer of this article was able to note
many changes since 1902:
The district of Sharp Street, in which the factory stands, has itself changed.
The city corporation has been at work shutting up the oldest courts, condemn-
ing the worst buildings, pulling down and rebuilding. It may be said that the
alterations have not remedied the destitution of which the district was the
home; that simply the aspect has been changed. Biit this would be an
extreme view. At any rate, the sun has now a better chance to shine upon
Angel Meadow, Manchester.
The factory also has altered. It has, in fact, almost doubled itself. . .
WTiere the total floor space was then 5,672 square yards it is now 10,125 square
yards. The fact that in 1909 the trade reached £621,000, as compared with
£284,118 for the fifty-three weeks of 1901, easily explains these extensions.
This progress is not comforting for a member of the Anti-Narcotic League,
imless he should be a co-operator, in which case there is a consolation in the
conquest of the co-operative tobacco trade by the C.W.S.
Except that the smoker's fancj' has veered more decidedly in favour of
flake tobaccos, and that the warfare of trusts has cut down profits, while the
demands of the tax gatherer have raised prices, there has been Uttle change in
the business, apart from its growth.
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