It was 1844. Queen Victoria was just 25 years old, but had already been queen for seven years. Charlotte Brontë and her siblings Emily and Anne were all alive, and scribbling away, although within four years Emily would be dead, followed a year later by her younger sister Anne. It was the early Victorian period, an era of gigot sleeves and crinolines; Robert Peel was prime minister with a Conservative government in power.

Most crucially, though, it was an era of radicalism and political protest. The working classes were becoming increasingly vocal about their lack of rights; in 1836, the Chartist movement had emerged out of their dissatisfaction, and the 1840s saw a buzz of activity amongst its adherents. The Chartists are largely associated with London – they started with the People’s Charter drawn up for the London Working Men’s Association, which demanded universal suffrage (for men), and voting by secret ballot among six key issues. Two petitions had been presented to the House of Commons in 1839 and 1842 with millions of signatures, and both had been quickly rejected, causing civil unrest.

But this working-class radicalism and political unrest was by no means a London-only phenomenon. Across the country, the working classes were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the unfairness of life in Britain; back in 1819, of course, the Peterloo Massacre had been the response to thousands of people who had gathered in Manchester to argue for the reform of parliamentary representation: this was an issue that meant something to those both in the north and south of the country.

The desire for a more equal society, one where those at the bottom of the social ladder had some power over their own lives, resulted not just in political agitation, but in social co-operation. In the mid-19th century, the co-operative movement developed in the north of England, with the Rochdale Pioneers being one of the first groups to pave the way for a wider movement.

Weavers
Twenty-eight individuals originally grouped together in 1844, half of them being skilled weavers based in the Lancashire town of Rochdale. The Industrial Revolution was in full swing, and increased mechanisation of their industry was putting many weavers on the breadline. This group of enterprising men therefore decided to join together to open their own store, selling foodstuffs that they otherwise would not be able to afford. This sounds simple, but to the individuals this was an ambitious goal. They had little money, and it took the 28 men four months to save £1 each with which to start their store.

What they also did was to set out a list of principles that they would agree to adhere to in business. Their membership would be open and voluntary, and not discriminate on any basis, such as class. The Pioneers would be democratic, controlled by the members. Each member would contribute, with capital being the common property of their co-operative, and any financial surplus to be allocated by the members.

On 21 December 1844, the Rochdale Pioneers opened for business, at a property at 31 Toad Lane, albeit with a limited stock of butter, sugar, flour, oatmeal and also candles – this stock totalled just £24. However, within a few months they were able to expand to include other items such as tea and tobacco, and they proved popular for their unwillingness to adulterate their goods – unlike many Victorian shopkeepers.

The Pioneers had other, larger, goals, however. In their original set of ‘objects’, or goals, they stated that they aimed to build or buy a number of houses, which Pioneers could live in in order to improve their ‘domestic and social condition’. They would also arrange for unemployed or under-employed members to make goods that they could sell, in order to give them employment and wages. Similarly, they intended to provide land that could be ‘cultivated’ by poorly paid or unemployed members, enabling them to grow vegetables that they could eat or sell.

The Rochdale Pioneers were also part of the temperance movement, promoting sobriety and aiming to open their own temperance hotel in one of the houses they had set out to buy or build. And on an even wider scale, they intended to make the co-operative movement they had established a nationwide one, stating that it would help other societies to establish themselves, as part of a ‘colony’ of co-operatives. Although it sounded somewhat idealistic, it formed the model for many other co-operative societies, with the Co-op itself surviving to this day.

The men who were members of the Rochdale Equitable Pioneer Society by the time its Toad Lane store opened included George, Miles and Samuel Ashworth; Abraham and John Holt; James Casson; William Mallalieu; James Whatmough; James Tweedale; and Benjamin Rudman. Men such as Casson and Abraham Holt came from weaving backgrounds, and had been born and bred in Rochdale. Here, they married, had children, worked, saw friends and relatives suffer or die, and saw others facing hardship. Whereas some would have had an insularity that meant they looked after themselves or their immediate families, the Rochdale Pioneers saw the opportunity to put something back into their local communities – to help those who were suffering economically, and to enable them all to stand on their own two feet, strengthening that community in the process. It was not for nothing that the members of the new society referred to each other as ‘brother co-operators’.

Growth
Three years after the store opened, the secretary of the Pioneers, James Daly, wrote to a newspaper to detail the anniversary celebrations. Illustrating how much the society had grown in this time, he noted that 150 members, together with their wives and families, had come to celebrate with ‘the cup which exhilarates but inebriates not’, in line with their temperance objective. The store’s stock was now worth nearly £300, and Daly explained how they were managing their affairs. The store sold provisions and clothing, but only for ready money – no credit was ever given. There was no storekeeper responsible for everything – instead, the store was opened each evening with a treasurer counting up the till each night, and a trustee locking the store keys away. Profits, after investments were made, were divided according to who needed help most; and members had to each have £4 in the society, formed from their profits and subscriptions ‘from 3d per week and upwards, or any sum they can afford’. If a member was in particular distress, he could apply to the society, as he would a bank, to get a portion of his money paid back to him.

By the 1850s, the society was considerably larger in size than it had been ten years earlier; indeed, in 1855, during a conference of co-operative societies in Lancashire and Yorkshire, convened by the Pioneers, it reported that the society ‘seemed likely to go on increasing in its members and business’. As its success had led to other societies being formed, the Pioneers now regarded part of its work as being to encourage and facilitate communication between the different societies, in order to offer help and advice to others.

It was not surprising that the original Pioneers were part of the woollen industry, given Rochdale’s location in the industrial heartlands of Lancashire. What was more surprising to some, however, is that their relative lack of money and resources did not hold them back, or make them less generous towards others. Instead, they recognised the power they had not as individuals but as members of a larger group, and that by pooling their individual resources they could become stronger collectively. Their motives and goals were shared by others, who in turn established their own co-operatives – a shining light in their communities and evidence of what could be done by these working-class men who

saw that they were being ignored by the political elite and took steps to redress a little bit of their power disadvantage.

Further reading
BOOKS

• Carol Davidson, The Original Rochdale Pioneers (2016)
• William Henry Brown, The Rochdale Pioneers: A Century of Co-operation (1950)
• George Jacob Holyoake, The History of the Rochdale Pioneers (1893)
• Beatrice Potter, The Co-operative Movement in Great Britain (C19th)

WEBSITES

• Co-operative Heritage Trust co-operativeheritage.coop/our-history-1
• Co-op history co-operative.coop/about-us/history