Page 45 - 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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William Cooper and E. V. Neale.
    report they tendered to the conference that met on Christmas
    morning in the newsroom of the King Street Store in Oldham:
       Your committee wish to note that there has been no real opposition to the
    Bill, another proof that when the working classes are earnestly bent on
    measm-es for improving their condition the higher classes, as they are called,
    do not oppose them, but give them a cheerful helping hand.
       With a co-operative eye for statistics, the committee also stated
    that " one thousand six hundred postal communications, including
    letters,  petition forms,  circulars, money acloiowledgments,  &c.,
    have been sent during the two years' effort."  The correspondence
    committee consisted  of Abraham Greenwood (who had quickly
    become the regular chairman of all meetings), Wilham Cooper, and
    Samuel Stott, but the bulk of the work fell upon Cooper.  Besides
    having a small manufacturing stationer's business of his own, he was
    then employed as cashier for the Pioneers' Society, a position he had
    held since its commencement.  He conducted the Pioneers' office
    business, spoke at other societies' gathermgs,  filled the part of a
    co-operative union in answering innumerable letters of inquiry, and
    Hterally worked night and day.  His efforts were not bounded by
    the co-operative movement.  An Owenite in his earty days, and a
    back-to-the-land advocate under O'Connor's influence, he remained
    a staunch radical and  secularist.  In pursuance  of  social and
    political reforms, he communicated with  all sorts and conditions
    of men—the mere deciphering of the handwriting of some among his
    distinguished correspondents must have been a labour  The papers
                                                   !
    still surviving from those he left afford a revelation of the width
    and variety of a Rochdale working man's interests during the third
    quarter  of the nineteenth  century.  Cooper died  in harness  in
    1868.  Holyoake spoke at his funeral.  "  I have been accustomed to
    regard him," said the historian of the Pioneers,  "  as the drudge of
    co-operation."
       Equally responsible with the Lancashire committee for the good
    work done were the friends in London, of whom the foremost was
    E. V. Neale.  He  it was who drafted the  Bill, who drew up the
    petitions, who  lobbied  Lords  and Commons, who  personally
    conducted the correspondence from London.  Had he charged a
    minimum of  6s.  8d. every time he put pen  to paper in  their
    interests the cost of the legislation vastly would have exceeded the
    £44. 19s. 7d. (less £19 balance in hand) which was the total expense.
    It  is pleasant to think of these two men, Cooper,  the Rochdale
    worker, secularist, and ex-chartist, and Neale, the London barrister
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