9 - The Strange Death of Co-operative Britain? Comparing the Development of British Co-operation with Wider European Trends and Emerging Strategies for a 21st-Century Revival

Summary

Introduction

As the author wrote this chapter, he had an eye on BBC TV's Digging for Britain (BBC 2, 16/1/2022), one section of which covered an archaeological dig in Rochdale, revealing fascinating artefacts of Rochdale's industrial history. Celebrated TV commentator Alice Roberts commented upon Rochdale's ‘small part’ in the history of industrialization. One can only assume that she is unaware that the town bequeathed a model of democratic cooperative commercial organization which spread around the world. Having considered the importance of Rochdale Town Hall, it is a great pity she did not walk just 100 yards from the dig site to the building on Toad Lane which housed the first coop store (now a museum) for another, arguably more important, example of ‘living’ archaeology, and the origin of Rochdale's greatest contribution to global development. But she is not the first popular academic to ignore co-operation. The celebrated BBC TV Series Turn Back Time: The High Street, aired in 2010, used a reality format to examine the evolution of high street retail in the Somerset town of Shepton Mallet. No reference was made to the fact that the town had the largest and most successful cooperative society in the county. That the programme made great claims to be educational in intent makes the omission even more egregious. Yet both instances allude to a gradual retreat of co-operation from British popular consciousness.

Until early in this century in Britain the word ‘coop’ frequently conjured up nostalgic memories of ‘divi’ numbers (member registration numbers used for recording purchases from the coop store by members so that dividends could be calculated) among a fast-disappearing older generation. For many elderly working-class people the coop symbolized a fixed point in daily life in the first half of the 20th century; the local store which rewarded loyal customer-members was a reliable fixture for several generations of working-class communities. But the nostalgia itself suggests an important story in the development of the British social economy. As the later 20th century wore on, such recollections became rarer, and the coop store was increasingly regarded as a fading feature of a disappearing industrial social landscape.