Now, if you are of a certain age, you will be able to quote your divi number, from countless trips to the Co-op.
If I am honest I can’t remember ours. We were with the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society, and used our number till they switched to blue stamps.
And thinking of all things co-op, this is Andy’s picture of the Beswick Co-operative Society’s store on Hyde Road.
“Beswick Co-operative Society was registered on 4 June 1892. Its central premises were at 30 Aston New Road, Manchester. Its first president was Arthur Cuss and its manager was a John Dobson. Its first branch was opened on 25 January 1894 at the corner of Mill Street and Carruthers Street in Ancoats, Manchester.
By 1905 its central premises were listed as Rowsley Street, Manchester and it had 5,700 members. It had branches in Manchester, Ancoats, Ardwick, Bradford, Openshaw and a bakery, warehouse and stables Beswick. It traded in grocery, drapery, hardware, shoes and boots, butchering, furnishing, tailoring, coal, flour, baking and dressmaking.
By 1951 the society had 36,047 members and had its central premises at Grey Mare Lane, Manchester. It had added branches in Burnage, Clayton, Denton, Didsbury, Gorton, Levenshulme, Longsight, Rusholme and Withington. It had expanded trade into millinery, jewellery, ironmongery and tobacco. It also produced dairy goods, offered shoe repairing services and had business in meat preparation.
The society became a part of the Co-operative Retail Services in 1959”.
And I have yet to find out when it closed.
Location; Gorton
Picture; former co-op store on Hyde Road, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson
Sources: The Co-operative Union directories, and the published history by AE Worswick, "History of the Beswick Co-operative Society Limited from 1892-1907".
*Beswick Co-operative Society, https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/f2e8292a-178b-3996-b98b-07fd82464939
And thinking of all things co-op, this is Andy’s picture of the Beswick Co-operative Society’s store on Hyde Road.
“Beswick Co-operative Society was registered on 4 June 1892. Its central premises were at 30 Aston New Road, Manchester. Its first president was Arthur Cuss and its manager was a John Dobson. Its first branch was opened on 25 January 1894 at the corner of Mill Street and Carruthers Street in Ancoats, Manchester.
By 1905 its central premises were listed as Rowsley Street, Manchester and it had 5,700 members. It had branches in Manchester, Ancoats, Ardwick, Bradford, Openshaw and a bakery, warehouse and stables Beswick. It traded in grocery, drapery, hardware, shoes and boots, butchering, furnishing, tailoring, coal, flour, baking and dressmaking.
The society became a part of the Co-operative Retail Services in 1959”.
And I have yet to find out when it closed.
Location; Gorton
Picture; former co-op store on Hyde Road, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson
Sources: The Co-operative Union directories, and the published history by AE Worswick, "History of the Beswick Co-operative Society Limited from 1892-1907".
*Beswick Co-operative Society, https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/f2e8292a-178b-3996-b98b-07fd82464939
I remember going up to the top floor in Lewis’ store in Manchester to a small window where my Mum did some sort of financial transaction. Early 1950s. Was that a Co-op bank? I seem to remember she had to give her number.
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