Co-operative Congress
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Co-operative
Cooperative
A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit...
Movement. The first of the modern congresses took place in 1869 following a series of meetings called the "Owenite
Robert Owen
Robert Owen was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:...
Congress" in the 1830s. Members of Co-operatives UK (previously the Co-operative Union) send delegates to the annual congress, where reports of national bodies are made and debates held on subjects of importance to the Co-operative Movement. The meetings also include the Annual General Meeting
Annual general meeting
An annual general meeting is a meeting that official bodies, and associations involving the public , are often required by law to hold...
of Co-operatives UK.
History
The first Co-operative Congresses were the Owenite Congresses, which provided a gathering place for the fledgling co-operative movement that was growing in the wake of the 1795 foundation of the Hull Anti-Mill, a corn mill that was also an early co-operative. The ManchesterManchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
Congress of 1830, organised by the Manchester and Salford Co-operative Council, is widely cited as the first of the Owenite Congresses. However, George Jacob Holyoake, in The History of Co-operation, describes the discovery of a record of an even earlier Congress, at which Robert Owen
Robert Owen
Robert Owen was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:...
had been present, this first Co-operative Congress being held in Manchester on 26 May 1827. The Owenite Congresses stopped in 1835, being replaced by Socialist Congresses with a broader range of delegates - but the 1860s saw increased agitation for them to be renewed from co-operators such as ET Craig and Alexander Campbell, and the first of the modern series was held in 1869.
The first of the modern Congresses was held in London. It was attended by a variety of British and foreign delegates, with co-operative activist (and author of Tom Brown's School Days
Tom Brown's Schooldays
Tom Brown's Schooldays is a novel by Thomas Hughes. The story is set at Rugby School, a public school for boys, in the 1830s; Hughes attended Rugby School from 1834 to 1842...
) Thomas Hughes MP
Thomas Hughes
Thomas Hughes was an English lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's Schooldays , a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford .- Biography :Hughes was the second son of John Hughes, editor of...
acting as its first president. Messages of support were read out from John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
, John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
and Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale OM, RRC was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night...
, who offered "any aid in my power to your Co-operative Congress, in whose objects I am deeply interested". It was the only one of the modern series not to be organised by Co-operatives UK: this was because one of the orders of business for the first Congress was the creation of the organisation, then called the Co-operative Central Board. Co-operatives UK was founded out of concerns that the success of the Co-operative Movement might lead to a loss of identity and its original vision, and was intended to be a national organisation to bind the Movement together and emphasise the role of co-operatives in wider society.
Co-operatives UK also took responsibility for organising the Co-operative Congress, and the annual meetings were the centre of the national Movement: most major changes in the movement came out of the Co-operative Congresses, such as the abandoning of political neutrality and the formation of the Co-operative Party
Co-operative Party
The Co-operative Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom committed to supporting and representing co-operative principles. The party does not put up separate candidates for any UK election itself. Instead, Co-operative candidates stand jointly with the Labour Party as "Labour...
(1917 Congress), the formalisation of ties to the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
(1927 Congress) or the founding of the Independent Co-operative Commission
Co-operative Commission
The Co-operative Commission was an independent commission set up by Tony Blair at the request of leaders of the British co-operative movement. Its aim was to review the strategy and structures of the sector, with an aim to suggesting ways to develop and modernise the movement, and its members...
chaired by Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell CBE was a British Labour politician, who held Cabinet office in Clement Attlee's governments, and was the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955, until his death in 1963.-Early life:He was born in Kensington, London, the third and youngest...
(1955 Congress). The Congress has carried on to the modern day as a two day event, with the only break being in 1944 when war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
conditions meant it was impossible for delegates to travel.
Publications
Verbatim proceedings of Congress are published by Co-operatives UK shortly after each event. Between 1880 and 1960, Congress handbooks were also published giving a history of the area the event was being held in and details of the co-operatives that were based there. From 1869 to 1899, Congress Papers on topics that would be discussed and debated at the event were also published, often in pamphlet form. Examples of these are held in the National Co-operative Archive, maintained by the Co-operative CollegeCo-operative College
The Co-operative College is a University in the United Kingdom which provides "inspirational learning and resources based on co-operative values and principles for individuals and organisations to support the development of sustainable co-operative, mutual and social enterprises throughout the world"...
.
Presidents
Beginning with the first modern Congress in 1869, a Congress President was elected to preside over the event: to begin with, a President was elected for each day of Congress, but from 1896 a single President was elected for the whole event. Being president was considered the highest honour in the UK Co-operative Movement, with societies nominating individuals for the position in recognition of their contribution to the movement. The President was presented with a commemorative medal, and gave a keynote address to the conference.
The Congress voted to abolish the position of President in 2007, with Alan Gill (former Chief Executive of United Co-operatives
United Co-operatives
United Co-operatives Limited, or simply United Co-op, was the largest regional consumer co-operative in the United Kingdom until its merger with The Co-operative Group in 2007. The Society operated across Yorkshire, the north west and north Midlands of England...
) being the last to serve in the position.