Nineteenth-Century Co-Operation: From Community Building to Shopkeeping*

Abstract

The history of the British co-operative movement in the nineteenth century may be divided into two periods: the first, beginning with the publications of Robert Owen in the second decade of the century, rising to a peak of influence in the years 1828–34, and ending, with the failure of Queenwood, in 1846; and the second, heralded by the foundation of the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers’ Society in 1844, registering an expansion around the year 1850 and becoming fully established about ten years later. The foundation of the English wholesale society in 1863 and of its Scottish counterpart in 1868 set the seal of consolidation on this chapter of co-operative history, and since those years the movement has enjoyed an unbroken record of growth and development.