Pioneers of the Co-op

It originated as the Leigh Friendly Co-operative Society in June 1857 as a result of the terrible suffering of the area's poverty stricken silk weavers.

At that time 24,000 people were dependent on an industry in which tyrannical bosses and agents expoited their workers.

Children were put to work at the age of eight or nine and had to stand on piles of turf in bare feet to reach their work.

In later life some had to walk to Patricroft and Manchester carrying their silk cuts to the warehouses.

They were so badly off food consisted mostly of jannock - an oatmeal porridge and water - with occasionally white bread on Sundays.

The silk industry was introduced to Leigh, largely due to the depressed cotton trade, but found itself once again overtaken as cotton came back providing better wages.

In the year the Co-op began it was reported that a big proportion of the population was unemployed and many were in a state of semi-starvation.

A public meeting was held and a total of £232 raised from voluntary donations as a relief fund.

It was in such circumstances that co-operation first started in Leigh.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and often in the last extremity of despair a helping hand is held out or sudden inspiration points a way out of the difficulty.

The men who initiated the movement in Leigh were certainly not misguided dreamers or likely to be deluded.

They were a small body of 13 intelligent working men who had formed a kind of mutual improvement class and had been meeting together for years in a garret over a newspaper shop at the corner of Sugar Street (which ran across the front of the town hall) and Newton Street.

Ten of them were connected with the silk industry.

Hearing of the wonderful things done by co-operators in Rochdale, whose society had been going for 13 years, local pioneers decided to imitate them.

Several meetings were held and a committee formed, the secretary Richard Birchall junior and treasurer Jas Leigh, better known as Jimmy Love.

Copies of the rules were obtained from Rochdale and it was eventually decided to start paying subscriptions of sixpence a week.

Nine people gave in their names on June 28 1857 and during the first month subscriptions totalled 15 shillings (75p).

Seven others joined during the second month and they decided that if growth continued they would be able to go into business in two years.

Fortunately one or two were more impatient than the rest and were rash enough to propose that business was started at once.

They bought a pair of second hand scales and speculated 37s (£1.85) on tea and coffee from the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers' Society and divided it out to members at cost price.

The next speculation was the purchase of a sack of flour.

The Leigh pioneers started in the garret where they held their mutual improvement class.

The approach was through an entry in Newton Street to an open yard and up a long flight of open steps.

The serving out of goods was taken in turn by members.

After four months the members gained more confidence and bigger shock subscriptions of £5 and then £20s started to be paid in.

The rapid accession of capital roused the committee into action. They fitted up the store with a moderate supply of groceries and provisions and arranged to be open for business at 7pm for three evenings a week.

Soon Newton Street was too confined and too inconvenient and the new businessmen set about looking for fresh, more suitable premises in Bradshawgate.

Soon shops began to spring up throughout the area. The first horse and cart was bought in 1860 and by 1907 the society had 37 horses, a steam motor wagon, 45 "lurries", carts and other conveyances.

And that's how it all began - the rest is history. Grocery shop at Bradshawgate and Albion Street. Butcher's shop in Albion Street. The first shop in the garret at the corner of Sugar and Newton Street.