[Illustration:
CENTRAL PREMISES
]
HISTORY
OF THE
UNITED CO-OPERATIVE BAKING SOCIETY LTD.
A FIFTY YEARS’ RECORD
1869–1919
BY WILLIAM REID
[Illustration: Logo]
PUBLISHED BY UNITED CO-OPERATIVE BAKING SOCIETY LIMITED
M‘NEIL STREET, GLASGOW
1920
[Illustration: SCOTTISH CO-OPERATIVE WHOLESALE SOCIETY LTD. PRINTERS
BOOK BINDERS & STATIONERS]
PREFACE.
The chief advantage of prefaces is the opportunities they give authors
for making apologies and for returning thanks. In the present instance
the hurry with which the book has had to be written did not allow time
enough to do many things which the writer would have liked to do. He
would have liked to linger with the old-time enthusiasts who laid the
foundations of the Society, to have made himself as familiar as possible
with the times in which they lived and with the thoughts in their minds,
so that he might be able to present to his readers a picture of their
times as they saw them, and of their difficulties as they had to
encounter them. For this there was no time, and so he has had to content
himself with telling a plain, unvarnished tale of difficulties met and
overcome, of a faith which refused to be dismayed, and of a triumph
which is visible to all.
Unfortunately, there is no one alive to-day who had any active part in
the inception of the Society. This increased the difficulty of
presenting a true picture of the beginnings of the Society, but some
help in this direction was got from the “Year Book,” which had been
written by Mr Lochrie in 1896. The writer is also very much indebted to
Mr David Brown, of the office staff of the Society, who prepared
synopses of the various minutes of the Society. These synopses, by
indicating the salient points in the minutes, greatly lightened the
labour of selection; but, in addition, every minute has been carefully
read at least once, and many of them much oftener, so that complete
accuracy might be secured.
Great assistance in dealing with the history of the last thirty years
has also been given by Mr James H. Forsyth, cashier of the Society,
whose knowledge of the transactions of that period is unparalleled.
W. R.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. SCOTLAND IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 1
II. THE DAWN OF CO-OPERATION 7
III. THE FIRST YEAR 17
IV. ST JAMES STREET BAKERY 29
V. THE BRANCH CONTROVERSY 43
VI. ST JAMES STREET: DEVELOPMENTS 56
VII. ST JAMES STREET: CONGESTION 69
VIII. M‘NEIL STREET 82
IX. M‘NEIL STREET: RAPID DEVELOPMENTS 97
X. FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS 110
XI. FURTHER EXTENSIONS 123
XII. CONTINUOUS DEVELOPMENT 144
XIII. CLYDEBANK BRANCH 158
XIV. BELFAST BRANCH 166
XV. A NEW PRESIDENT 184
XVI. FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH 197
XVII. PROGRESS CONTINUES STEADY 210
XVIII. BAKING UNDER WAR CONDITIONS 224
XIX. BREAD BAKING UNDER CONTROL 238
XX. EDUCATIONAL WORK 253
XXI. MEN WHO WROUGHT 262
STATISTICS 273
ILLUSTRATIONS.
CENTRAL PREMISES _Frontispiece_
COBURG STREET AND ST JAMES STREET PREMISES _Facing page_ 16
M‘NEIL STREET PREMISES „ 17
M‘NEIL STREET PREMISES „ 32
CLYDEBANK BAKERY „ 33
PAST PRESIDENTS (1) „ 64
PAST PRESIDENTS (2) „ 65
PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY „ 80
AUDITORS „ 81
DIRECTORS (1) „ 112
DIRECTORS (2) „ 113
BELFAST ADVISORY COMMITTEE „ 128
MANAGER AND CASHIER „ 129
EDUCATIONAL COMMITTEE „ 160
PRIZE SILVER BAND „ 161
BELFAST BAKERY „ 176
ST MUNGO HALLS „ 177
DEPARTMENTAL MANAGERS (1) „ 208
DEPARTMENTAL MANAGERS (2) „ 209
DEPUTATIONS TO ENGLAND (1) „ 224
DEPUTATIONS TO ENGLAND (2) „ 225
ROLL OF HONOUR „ 277
CHAPTER I.
SCOTLAND IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES.
GENERAL SOCIAL CONDITIONS—EARLY FARMING METHODS—POVERTY OF THE
PEOPLE—MINERS AS SERFS—“THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE”—IMPROVING
CONDITIONS: THE ACT OF UNION AND ITS EFFECTS—THE INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION—THE FACTORY SYSTEM: ITS EFFECT ON THE STATUS OF MEN.
The conditions under which the people of Scotland lived during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were rude and uncouth, and, when
judged by modern standards, could scarcely be described as other than
appalling. In the few towns of any size, stone buildings were the rule;
but in the rural districts the majority of the people lived in huts, the
walls of which were built of sods and stones, and which were roofed with
wattles and thatched with rushes. These huts were windowless save for a
hole in the wall which admitted some air but very little light during
the summer, and which was stuffed with rags and rushes during winter in
order to keep out the snell North wind. The floor was but earth,
hardened with the trampling of countless feet; and fireplace or chimney
there was none, unless a few stones set in the middle of the floor or
against one of the gables can be called a fireplace, and a hole in the
roof, through which the smoke found its way after it had explored every
nook and cranny of the house, a chimney.
Famine was an almost annual visitor. The majority of the people lived by
agriculture, but the land was cold and undrained, and the methods of
tilling were ineffective. The motive power was sometimes provided by
oxen, but often the people harnessed themselves to the primitive
implements. The result was that the grain grown was poor in quality and
scanty in quantity, while often it failed to ripen because of the
wetness of the soil, and because, also, of lateness in sowing. The
cattle were poor and underfed. Roots for feeding purposes were unknown
until near the end of the period; there was no grain to spare, and
little straw or hay for winter feeding, so that the poor brutes had to
forage for themselves as best they could.
In the hall of the laird the position was a little better, but few of
the lairds of that day could aspire to the standard of living of a
moderately well-to-do farmer of to-day. Of food there was always enough
in the hall, but it was coarse and unsavoury. Throughout the winter
fresh meat was unknown. The cattle were killed in the autumn; the meat
was stored in brine barrels, and this brine-soaked meat, or swine flesh
preserved in the same manner, was the only meat which found a place on
the table of the laird during the winter months, except on the few
occasions of great importance when one or two fowls were killed.
The farming class, if it be not a misnomer to call them farmers, usually
lived in groups of such huts as are described above, and tilled their
land more or less in common. The system chiefly in vogue was the “run
rig” system, under which exchange of ground took place every year. The
more important of their crude implements were also held in common, and
as these could only be used by one person at a time—as, also, it was
often well on in the spring before any thought of tillage occurred to
them or the condition of their water-logged soil would permit of it, and
as much time was often lost in deciding the rotation in the use of the
implements—the return in the good years was only just sufficient for
their wants. As the bad years were generally twice as numerous as the
good years, the conditions of the rural workers were generally most
miserable. Ill-treated Nature, receiving no encouragement from man save
the “tickling of her face with a stick,” refused to give of her bounty,
and the people who depended on her for life suffered accordingly.
A condition of continual hunger was the lot of the labourers who had no
land to till. They were often forced to depend for food on the roots and
berries they could gather in the woods; the scraps which went to feed
the laird’s pigs were luxuries which only came their way at long
intervals. Work was intermittent; it was poorly paid, for money was even
scarcer than food. The only landless men who had what might be termed a
decent living wage for the period were the miners. They received about a
shilling a day; but, in return, they sold themselves into serfdom, for,
from the beginning of the seventeenth century until the closing year of
the eighteenth, no man, woman, or child who once entered a mine to work
in it could leave it again. If the mine was sold the sale carried with
it the right to their labour; they were bondslaves until death, the
great emancipator, burst their shackles and set them free for ever.
On the large farms, which became more numerous during the eighteenth
century, ploughmen received the truly magnificent salary of 35/ a year,
with one or two perquisites, of which one was a pair of boots. The
ploughman’s daughter, if she went to the farm to assist the farmer’s
wife and daughters with the cows, received, as a reward for her labour,
13/4 a year, a piece of coarse cloth for an apron, and a pair of shoes.
In the towns the conditions were little better. In the early years of
the eighteenth century a succession of bad years brought distress to all
sections of the populace. There was much unrest, which was fanned into
flame by the passing of the Act of Union in 1707, when a considerable
amount of rioting took place in various parts of the country. In
addition, the foreign trade of the country had been ruined by the
English Navigation Act of 1660, which provided that all trade with the
English Colonies should be carried in English ships alone.
In the closing years of the seventeenth century Paterson, the founder of
the Bank of England, launched his Darien scheme, famous in history as
“The South Sea Bubble,” for the purpose of inaugurating a great world
exchange and mart at the Isthmus of Panama. Scotsmen became responsible
for £400,000 of the capital, and actually paid in £220,000. The jealousy
of the English merchants, however, together with the fact that it had
been proposed to establish a depot on land which was claimed by Spain,
without having gone through the formality of consulting that country
beforehand, handicapped the scheme from the outset. Nevertheless,
although opposed by the English, and cold-shouldered by the Dutch, whose
help they had hoped to enlist, the Scotsmen persevered with their
project. A company, numbering 1,200, set out for their destination,
landed, and erected a fort. Difficulties came fast, however. The King
had not given his consent to the scheme, and the American colonists
refused to have anything to do with them. Supplies gave out before the
new crops were ready, and none were forthcoming from home, so that at
the end of eight months the colony was broken up. Out of a total of
2,500 persons who had left Scotland, not more than thirty ever reached
home again. The failure of the scheme caused untold misery and ruin in
Scotland, and did much to engender the bitter feelings toward the
English which showed themselves when the union of the two Parliaments
was being discussed; but, worst of all, it bled the country white; so
much so that when, a few years later, the British Government called in
the Scottish coinage in order to replace it with coinage of the United
Kingdom, only coinage to the value of £400,000 was returned to Scotland.
IMPROVING CONDITIONS.
The Act of Union was exceedingly unpopular, but, as it turned out, it
was not an unmixed evil, for it placed Scottish traders on the same
footing as the English in respect to trading with the Colonies, from
which they had been debarred for fifty years. It also gave Scottish
ships free entry to English ports and Scottish goods free entry to
English markets, and so marked the beginning of the increasing
prosperity which has come to Scotland since then.
In particular the opening up of trade with the Southern Colonies had
much to do with laying the foundation of the proud commercial position
which Glasgow holds to-day. Merchants from the little town on the banks
of the Clyde began to trade with these Colonies, bringing back in
exchange for their wares tobacco and other products, including cotton.
During the same period there was introduced from Holland the art of fine
spinning, and on these two articles of Colonial produce—tobacco and
cotton—were built up many fortunes. Later in the century the invention
of the spinning jenny, the carding frame, and the power-loom, and the
discovery by Watt of how to harness the power of steam to production all
gave an impetus to the commercial growth of Scotland. With the
application of the power of steam the foundation of Scotland’s
pre-eminent position in the manufacture of iron and steel and in the
building of ships was laid, for by the application of steam-power to
pumping machinery and to haulage it was found possible to keep her coal
pits free from water and to dig vertical shafts to the coal seams.
Thus the eighteenth century, which had begun with the Scottish people in
the direst poverty, ended with many of them in comparative comfort and
with the standard of living for all definitely raised. Never since then,
not even in the period of deep poverty which followed the close of the
Napoleonic war nor in the “hungry ’forties,” have the whole people
fallen back into the depths of misery in which they were sunk at the
beginning and all through the seventeenth century and well into the
“’twenties” of the eighteenth. At times since then progress seemed to be
at a standstill; at times it seemed even to be on the down grade; but
the impetus has always been recovered; the standard of living has been
rising gradually, and although we are still far removed from the rude
profusion which has caused the century in English history which followed
the “Black Death” to be spoken of as “the golden age of labour,” the
trend of our march is in the direction of a condition which, measured by
the different standards of to-day, will approximate to that long past
happy period.
THE FACTORY SYSTEM.
While it is admitted that the inventions and discoveries of Sir Joseph
Arkwright (partner of David Dale at Lanark), Hargreaves, Crompton, and
Cartwright revolutionised industry, and in the long run brought a higher
standard of living to the people, yet the first results of their
application were not wholly good. For centuries spinning and weaving had
been carried on in the homes of the people, but with the invention of
the spinning jenny, the carding frame, and the power-loom the weaving
industry was removed to larger buildings. At first these were merely
makeshifts. A disused stable or cowshed, any building, in fact, which
would house a number of looms was good enough for the new industry. The
hand-loom weavers soon found that they were unable to compete with the
new methods. To make matters worse, where they did not themselves give
up and take service under the new regime, their wives and their children
did, and became competitors in driving the husbands and fathers out of
the industry.
Soon the millowners discovered that in the new methods with the new
cheap labour there was a mine of wealth and, their greed growing by what
it fed on, they sought for even cheaper labour than that of the poorly
paid wage-slave women and children. This cheaper labour they found in
the thousands of pauper children under the care of the supervisors of
the poor. The story of the cruel treatment of these poor little mites,
who were often chained to the frames of the looms and whipped to keep
them awake, is one of the blackest pages in the whole history of the
growth of the capitalist system in Great Britain.
In the weaving trades the entry of women and children changed the whole
economy of the weavers’ homes. Formerly the work had been done by the
male members of the families, assisted to some extent by the women, but
under the new system the factory owner found that he could get as much
work done by the mother at a considerable reduction on the wages paid to
her husband, and so the husband found himself workless. Then it was
found that the children soon became as expert as their elders, and so a
further reduction in wages took place.
The net result was that it became a case of equal pay for equal work,
but the standard of pay was that of the women and not of the men, and
soon the whole family had to work to provide the necessaries of life for
the home which should have been provided by the wages of the husband
alone. Even to-day, while the women of the cotton mills who are members
of their unions are probably the best paid female workers in the
country, the standard for men is much below that for male workers in
other trades; so that, in the case of the factory workers, “equal pay
for equal work” has meant a general lowering of the standard of pay.