Page 409 - 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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The Architects^ Department.
department from the plans of Mr. F. E. L. Harris, A.R.I.B.A., tlio
architect to the Society.
Until his appointment the C.W.S. plans
were di'afted by or for the head of the buildmg department, or the
services of an architect were commissioned in the usual manner.
Under the early system of the builders being responsible for the
designs also, the elevations might be effective by reason of proportion
and outward simpHcity, otherwise they were unpretentious.
Of
buildings designed by a professional architect uncomiected with the
Society, West Blandford Street remains the chief example. To
obtain such professional assistance, with the additional advantage
of a permanent connection v/ith and intimate knowledge of the
Society, Mr. Harris was appointed in 1897, and a new department
begun under his charge. Since that time all the buildings erected
and the extensions made by the C.W.S. at home or abroad—offices,
warehouses, flour mills, weaving sheds, boot factories, and so on
have been built from the designs and under the supervision of Mr.
Harris and his department. The Dunston Soap Works forms the
only exception, inasmuch that the architecture was by Mr. Ekins, who
had gone to Newcastle from the architects' office at Manchester to
take charge of societies' local work. iVt Manchester and Newcastle
the latter is an important branch of the department's activities;
during the early months of 1913 some sixty plans were in preparation
at the Manchester headquarters for the retail societies. From
Cambridge to Colne, and from Walsall to Hull, central premises
for societies have been designed in this manner, while the credit
of Holyoake House, the headquarters of the Co-operative Union,
also belongs to this department.

The building of the second block of C.W.S. premises on Cor-
poration Street, Manchester, enabled the C.W.S. Bank to be worthily
housed; for, as a litter of books and papers, proofs, cuttings, and
"
slips of copy " is to a jom-nahst's table, so is a show of opulence to
a banker. Tlu-ough the years of our narrative, since the days of
Chapter IX., we must think of this side of the C.W.S. business as
steadily pursuing its way, a way distinct from that of the trading
departments. A very large part of the yearly and daily history
lies concealed within the comparative figures printed among the
appendices. From sixty-two in 1873 the current accounts increased
to 987 in 1912; how regularly the table shows. More than equally,
the annual turnover rose from a million sterling to one hundred and
fifty-eight millions. The service to societies and the C.W.S. was
325