Page 89 - 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 Branch in Being.

had an area of 853 square yards, and were to be bought for £4.000.
The offer was accepted. At a further cost of £13,000, or £17,000 in
all, a new warehouse was l^uilt, and that establishment created
which has since developed into the great scheme of offices and ware-
houses in Waterloo Street, Thornton Street, and West Blandford
Street. On Saturday, January 22nd. 1874. the " magnificent new
buildings " were opened by Dr. Rutherford. Messrs. Woodin and
Lloyd Jones travelled down from London for the opening ; William
Nuttall, Mr. Crabtree, and Abraham Greenwood came from
Manchester, and nearly two hundred representative co-operators of
the district were present. After the ceremony all sat down to dinner
together in the new warehouse. " This important and vigorous
portion of our business," the General Committee reported of
the Newcastle Branch in August. 1873. "still keeps up its high
reputation in every department, and when they enter upon their
new premises (the plans of which are being prepared) there will
scarcely be a limit to their development and progress."
The appointment as chief clerk, in 1873, of Mr. H. R. Bailey,
who, from co-operative pioneering in Manchester, had travelled
north via the secretaryship of the Sunderland Society, brings us in
touch with present times. At the end of the same year the chairman
of the branch committee, Mr. George Dover, of Chester-le-Street.
was able to congratulate the forty delegates present upon continued
increases of business. He added, " And, what is of still greater
importance, our Society has been the means of doing much good to
small societies, who, owing to their want of capital, were in a measure,
previous to oxii opening this branch, at the mercy of merchants —
thus fulfilling one of the chief aims for which the Wholesale was
commenced." Quarter after quarter, for several years, the General
Committee continued to express their appreciation of the figures of
business from Newcastle. In 1877 they encouraged the Northern
Societies to persevere still further in this advance "towards the
more just and equal distribution of wealth, and the advantages and
enjoyments that wealth can give, to which we look forward as the
destined achievement of co-operation."
A natural question is: What were the constitutional relations
Apparently, until an
of the branch and the general committees ?
alteration of the rules in 1874. the branch committee was simply a
local body of convenience, subject in all its actions to the necessary
approval of the legal custodians of the Society, who met at
ilanchester. The branch minutes regularly were transmitted to
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