THE
GALASHIELS CO-OPERATORS
and the ideas of WILLIAM
KING & THOMAS CHALMERS
exhibition by Penicuik Community Development Trust in the
Cowan Institute,
The
Rochdale Pioneers are usually credited with setting up the first co-operative
store. The co-operative principles they set down clearly in 1844 were to be the
main inspiration for the great –and properly regulated- cooperative movement. But a pioneering enthusiasm for co-operative
trading had begun much earlier in the 1820s, both in
Among
such places were the spinning and weaving townships of the
“The
Leeds Corn Mill Society - the Padiham Co-operative
Manufacturers – the Galashiels Co-operators -
present features of success worthy to be placed side by side with the
Rochdale Store. Whether in being originated and conducted by purely
working men - whether in the variety and development of their operations –
whether in propagandist spirit - they are to be compared or placed
before the Rochdale Pioneers, are matters I leave for others to
determine. The public will be glad to hear more about these experiments
than these pages can communicate.”
From “Self Help
by the People, the History of the
One of the founding Galashiels
Co-operators was a radical weaver with family origins in Stow
William Clapperton radical
weaver &
Lajos
Kossuth Hungarian patriot
William had been a weaver for much of his life, and became
a cowfeeder in retirement. He was also a keen breeder
of bees, and spent his final years at Huddersfield in Galashiels
till his death on 26 February 1860 .
The Border Advertiser announced his death on Friday March
2nd: "Sudden Death; - A startling instance of the uncertainty of life
took place on Sunday morning in the sudden death of Mr. William Clapperton, an old, well known and respected
inhabitant. For a short time previous
one of his cows, on which he set much value, had been unwell and nearly dead,
and his rest had been disturbed by attending to the animal. During Saturday night he had got little rest,
and on Sunday morning he rose at 5 o'clock and was very mach overjoyed
to find his animal beginning to recover.
He retired to rest after having had a cup of tea in his son's house
adjoining, and about, 8 o'clock his son Alexander, happening to look into his
bed noticed his features strangely altered, and on springing into the bed and
raising him up his head fell back and he immediately expired. The cause of death is believed to have been
apoplexy, brought to a climax by excess of joy at the unexpected recovery of
his cow. William was one, if not the
chief originator and leader of the temperance movement in this town. He was also a keen politician and held
extreme Chartist views, though he was always respected for the independent way
in which he advocated his political creed.
He was the individual selected by the working classes, on the occasion
of Kossuth's visit to Galashiels,
to present the illustrious Hungarian with a plaid of our own manufacture, which
he did in a very appropriate speech. He
followed the occupation of a spinner during the greater part of his life, but
latterly had given up his attention almost exclusively to the keeping of a
dairy. He maintained also a local
celebrity as a breeder and of bees, no less than does his son for the knowledge
he possesses of our British cage and wild birds. He was seventy five years of age and leaves
an aged partner two years older then himself to mourn his sudden bereavement."
Supporting
the Galashiels Co-operators, Hoyoake
also notes, in a footnote to his “History of Co-operation:”
155. Mr. Walter Sanderson,
of Galashiels, informs me (1876) that the principle
was introduced into that town about the same time (1827) by William Sanderson
(founder of the Building Society there) without any connection with
Walter Sanderson was
employed as the Inspector of the Poor for
Galashiels. In 1869 his daughter
Janet married Galashiels schoolmaster Charles Lapworth (1842-1920) an
enthusiastic amateur geologist who revolutionised the interpretation of the
Southern Uplands and who became Professor of Geology at
Charles Lapworth (1842-1920)
A
co-operative store had also been started in
King
qualified as M.D. (Cantab) in 1819 and a Fellow of
the Royal College of Physicians in the following year. He stayed at St.
Bartholomew's Hospital until 1821, when he married Miss Mary Hooker, daughter
of Dr. Hooker, vicar of Rottingdean, near
Elizabeth
Fry (1780-1845)
Elizabeth
Fry was often in
Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847) - later led the Disruption of the Church of Scotland
Dr.
King took a prominent part in the work of the society, and in one year it
"induced the poor to lay by amongst them about £1,000.' Larger schemes for
social improvement soon attracted Dr. King's attention. Early in 1823 efforts were made in various
parts of the country to establish
mechanics* institutions, the first in
Dr.
King was chief promoter of the Institution, one of its vice-presidents, and a
trustee. Within a few weeks a house in
From
the Institution’s
The
members’ hopes were shared by Dr. King, who respected their ambitions, and
praised their efforts. Recognising that ignorance was the chief obstacle, on May
1st, 1828, he began to issue The Co-operator, a four-page monthly magazine that
sold all over the country for a penny.
In it he tried to put across principles of co-operation in practical
terms. He showed how people could improve their conditions by working together ; how even the poorest could amass capital by
co-operative shopkeeping ; and foretold how voluntary co-operation, practised in simple, everyday, social actions like buying
and consuming, would lead to ownership and associated industry, and eventually
carry the workers forward to a new society, in which there would be "a
perpetual progress" of mankind "towards an endless perfection of
character and happiness." .
William King (1786-1865) and his journal The
Co-operator
Describing
the shop as the centre of co-operative enterprise, The Co-operator noted that
provident funds should invest their
subscriptions, not in the funds of Savings' Banks, but in Trade: purchasing
those articles which were daily wanted and consumed by the members; they bought
for ready money, and sold for ready money — they therefore ran no risk either way. Whatever the profit be,
whether much or little, the Society receives it. As often as the capital is turned round, so the profit
returns. This profit is has been a
profound secret to the working classes; it is so no longer -they know it and they keep it
for themselves. Had the sums of money been invested at interest in the usual
way they would have yielded them a profit of about five pounds. By being
invested in trade, they have yielded them a profit of about thirty.
“This
is the first step in a Working
“At
first, as the capital of the Society will be small, the shop will not be able
to supply the members with all the articles of consumption they may want. As the capital increases
this will be done more perfectly. But as the wants of the members are
limited, there will be a time when capital will exceed what the shop
requires. This will happen in less than
one year after the Society is formed, even though the weekly subscriptions
should be as low as threepence. When this period
arrives, the Society will ask themselves this question
— What shall we do with our surplus capital? The answer will be — employ one of
your own members to manufacture shoes, or clothes, &c. &c. for the rest ; pay him the usual wages, and give the profits to the
common capital. In this way they will proceed, as the capital increases, to
employ one member after another, either to manufacture articles consumed by the
members, or by the public. Beginning to manufacture for the members, the sale
is sure. When the capital is able to produce more goods than the members can
consume, they must manufacture those articles which are in demand by the public
at large.
The
Co-operator was widely and eagerly read.
In carrying the principles of co-operation into practical advice, Dr
King advised how to conduct business and manage affairs in a businesslike way, emphasising the importance of good management, cash trading,
accurate book-keeping, publicity, and democratic administration, and showing
the responsibility of each to promote the welfare of all. Realising
how the funds of co-operative societies might be jeopardised
without legal protection, he urged Henry Brougham, M.P., then the foremost
champion of popular rights, to consider promoting supportive legislation.
But
some clergy and ministers of all denominations had begun to preach against
co-operation, and Dr. King was openly accused of infidelity and sedition. The Rev. W. L. Pope, of Tunbridge
Wells asserted that his motives were wicked, his principles horrid, and that he
himself was an infidel. Other critics
were almost equally abusive. Attacks of this kind, though ridiculous, harmed Dr King’s work as a
physician with a growing family to support. In a sense, Dr King’s advocacy of
co-operation had already served its purpose, the people were aware of the power
they could command. His publication of
The Co-operator ceased in 1830. At its
height, it had a circulation of 12,000 and a multiple readership. But it had cost him much, and given a share
of disappointments. William Bryan,
first secretary of the Co-operative Benevolent Association, had left
A
philanthropist in the true meaning of that much-abused word, Dr. King had
aspired to be "the poor man's doctor;" his consulting room was
always open to the poor ; and his services as a physician were given most willingly to those who could offer him
no remuneration. Yet, since no one saw more clearly than he
that charity creates a multitude of sins,
his chief desire was to help the poor to
help each other to overcome "pauperism, misery, and crime" by forming co-operative
associations. In the words of The
Co-operator in 1830: “Many petty attempts have been
made, by benevolent persons, to relieve the wants of the lower classes, and to
promote their comfort: but no one ever imagined, before the present day, that
workmen were themselves capable of looking so far as to adopt a system of
mutual labour, support, and instruction, in order to provide for themselves upon a
permanent plan. The spirit which prompted this, is a
new spirit; as much as the steam engine is a new mechanical power. Like other
new powers and machines, it will require many experiments to bring it to
practical perfection;
but when one experiment has succeeded, imitation will become
easy, and mankind will reap the benefit
of it for ever !”
Text on Dr King sourced & adapted from Dr. WILLIAM
KING AND THE CO-OPERATOR 1828-1830 ed T. W. MERCER
FOOTNOTE
In
the “History of Co-operation:”
In 1842, Mr.
John Gray, of Faldonside, Galashiels,
published "An Efficient Remedy for the Distress of Nations."
Mr. Owen having set a fashion of devising "an entirely new system of
society," Mr. Gray put forth one. Society profits in a silent, sulky
way, by suggestions made to it: yet it dislikes any one who proposes to
overhaul it. Mr. Gray had a great plan of a Standard
Bank and Mint. The Duke of Wellington made known this year, in one
of his wonderful notes, that "he declined to receive the visits of
deputations from associations, or of individual gentlemen, in order to confer
with them on public affairs; but if any gentleman thinks proper to give him, in
writing, information or instruction, on any subject, he will peruse the same
with attention." The modest, painstaking duke had not Mr. Gray
before his eyes when he said this. That gentleman would have taken the
duke at his word, and soon have brought him to a standstill. The
pleasantest part of Mr. Gray's "Efficient
Remedy" is where he tells the reader that he had published a previous work
which had not sold, so that in issuing another he could only be actuated by a
desire to advance the interests of mankind, and this was true. He was a
well-meaning, disinterested, and uninteresting writer. His books never
sold, nor could they be given away; and there was for long a stock at two
places in
exhibition prepared by Roger Kelly for Penicuik Community
Development Trust
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