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History of the Co-operative Movement A worldwide movement starts in Scotland Robert Owen sowed the seeds of co-operativism with his factory at New Lanark and his radical approach to industrial relations. Owen (1771-1858) made his fortune in the cotton trade and is credited with fathering the cooperative movement. He was passionate about providing a good environment and education for his workers and their children, establishing the innovative cotton mills of New Lanark, which he directed from 1800 to 1829. Meanwhile, other co-operatives started out as small grassroots organisations in Western Europe, North America and Japan in the mid 19th century. People working together to create mutual benefits In 1844, the first modern consumer co-operative business was established by the Rochdale Pioneers, (supporters of Owen's philosophy) - a group of 28 artisans working in the cotton mills in Rochdale in England. They sold basic provisions to workers at affordable prices. It seems that there were co-ops in Lennoxtown, Govan and Parkhead in Glasgow as well as at Fenwick near Kilmarnock as far back as the early 18th century, but these are not as well documented as the Rochdale Pioneers. Co-ops have since emerged as a powerful source of jobs and innovation, enabling many hundreds of millions of people to enjoy more control over their own work and welfare, with hundreds of co-operatives in Scotland and around the world |
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 Co-operation in Scotland - some historical background The idea of co-operative enterprise seems to have occurred to a number of people in different places around the same time - the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century - in a variety of places in Scotland and England. As early an example as any, though, is the Fenwick Weavers' Society of 1769, which was founded in the Ayrshire village of that name, although little is known of its subsequent history. Other early ventures are recorded in Govan (1800), Kilmarnock (1800) and Lennoxtown (1812), some of which have continued trading until the present day, through a series of amalgamations and name-changes. The idea of co-operation for economic purposes, though, really came to public attention following Robert Owen's world-famous innovations in industrial organisation at New Lanark (from 1800 onwards), in the Clyde Valley south of Glasgow. During the first half of the nineteenth century, numerous forms of co-operative enterprise were established in Scotland, only a few of which survived for any length of time. It was the Industrial & Provident Societies Act of 1852, which gave such enterprises a measure of security, recognition and protection, which triggered a period of rapid expansion: by 1867 no fewer than 128 societies had been established and registered in Scotland. In the early days, these were mainly consumer co-operatives, providing a fair alternative to the infamous "Truck Stores" in factories and mines (hence the use of the expression "Equitable" in the names of so many societies). Before long, though, the idea was being used more widely, for producer co-operatives, in banking and insurance and, from 1868, in wholesale trading, allowing the local societies to act jointly in sourcing and purchasing their merchandise. The Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society (SCWS) was established by 40 local societies, in Glasgow in 1868 and very rapidly expanded and diversified into a range of fields, including manufacturing, transport, banking and insurance. In the 1880s a vast manufacturing complex was established at Shieldhall in Glasgow which by 1914 was employing over four thousand people in more than 100 different trades and occupations, and doing over £1m of business a year. This impressive achievement was reflected in the construction of the monumental headquarters building in Morrison Street, Glasgow, just across the river from the Society's original, very modest, premises at Madeira Court. That remained the heart of Co-operative activity in Scotland for a century, when the rationalisation of management and administration following the merger with the Manchester-based CWS, made such vast premises unnecessary. The SCWS was created primarily to meet the needs of the local consumer co-operatives. Early on, though, it took on the role of promoting the idea of co-operation in areas where it was as yet unknown. This was particularly the case in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, with its sparse population, lack of industry and the infrastructure that goes with it, and powerful lairds who discouraged any form of economic independence on the part of the ordinary people. To overcome these difficulties, SCWS intervened directly in the local trade and the first SCWS retail branch was established in Elgin in 1908. This side of SCWS activity steadily prospered and expanded, while local societies from time to time encountered commercial crises and found incorporation into SCWS a welcome option. In 1966 the scale of the retail activity was acknowledged by the creation of Scottish Co-operative Retail Services (SCRS). The process of integration continued, especially as competition from the private sector in the form of the new "supermarkets" increased and in 1972 SCWS changed its name to the Scottish Co-operative Society (SCS). Even today, within the UK-wide Co-operative Group, Scottish operations retain a distinctive identity, with the name "Scottish Co-op" and its own Board, which meets monthly. Since 1973 there has been a thorough process of rationalisation, whereby effort has been concentrated on those areas where the Co-operative approach (The Co-operative Advantage) works best, and of massive investment, giving the "Co-op" in Scotland today as fresh and vigorous an appeal as its private sector competitors. Strong links have been maintained, too, with the independent Co-operative societies in Scotland (such as Scotmid) and with other forms of co-operative enterprise, such as worker co-ops and credit unions. |
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