In the period from 1759 until 1820, at least 46 flour and bread societies were established in parts of England and Scotland to provide bread and flour at retail to the public below the local 'market price'. These societies were owned directly by consumers or operated indirectly through a friendly society. Flour and bread were sold as near to 'prime cost' as possible, covering the costs of raw materials, conversion costs and capital rather than at market prices. The articles of one society comprehensively stated the objectives of most societies: 'established... for the Purpose of Reducing the Unexampled Prices of Bread and Flour, and to Prevent the Adulteration of these Articles with Materials of Inferior and Pernicious Qualities." The societies attempted to serve community interests and their members' interests by intervening directly in the market by retailing, baking and flour milling. Some societies passed on the benefits to members of consolidating retail purchases to obtain 'wholesale' prices. Most societies, and all the large societies, believed that in order to derive full benefits for consumers they should use vertical integration to attempt to control the processing and distribution of grain and flour products for their families. Smaller flour clubs were not able to do this.
The research underlying this essay has covered England and Scotland, although most societies were concentrated in Yorkshire, the naval ports of the south of England, the East and West Midlands, East Anglia, and central Scotland.: Like the great majority of retail organisations in this period, only basic data are available for most companies.(3) The main source of information about these organisations is their rules, the Privy Council examination of the Birmingham Flour and Bread Company (BFBC), memories collected by Jones, Potter and others writing towards the end of the nineteenth century or brief comments in newspapers or gazetteers.(4) Philanthropic activity such as the corn mills provided by subscription committees in Barham and Chislehurst are excluded from this survey.(5) The words 'society' and 'company' are used here interchangeably.
This paper discusses the origins of communal flour and bread societies (section II) and the economic and social factors surrounding their formation (section III). Their legal status as unincorporated joint stock companies with large amounts of freely transferable stock in breach of the 1720 Bubble Act(6) is considered in section IV. The sales and marketing methods used by societies are the subject of section V, whilst VI covers their organisation and management control.
The combination of community business practice with high ideals makes them an early form of co-operative endeavour although it is an oversimplification to call these mixed and diverse organisations 'cooperatives'. Historians of the pre-Rochdale co-operative movement have tended to concentrate on Owenite experiments and King-type co-operative stores.(7) The extensive nature of eighteenth-century flour and bread societies has only been recognised recently, partly as a by-product of industrial archaeology research relating to the flour industry. The creation of these societies may indicate a further, practical, self-help dimension of the 'moral economy' in response to the privations of the late eighteenth century.(8)
II
Four main categories of flour and bread society have been identified. These are shipwright societies, flour clubs, friendly society clubs and mills, and joint stock flour and bread societies.
Shipwright flour mills and bakery societies were the earliest known flour and bread societies, the earliest dating from 1759. There were smock corn mills with bakeries built by shipwrights in Chatham (Middlesex) and Woolwich (Kent).(9) Local bakers were alleged to have been involved in burning down the Woolwich mill on 16 March 1760. The controversy was still going on in 1763 when Pitt offered a free pardon for anyone turning King's Evidence.(10) Bread societies were established by shipwrights in Portsmouth (the United Society - H.M. dockyards) on 10 May 1796" and at Brixham Quay, Devon (Unity and Amity Society) in 1798.(12) Following concern about the adulteration of flour with china clay, dockyard workers at Sheerness (Kent) formed the Economical Society in 1816 'for obtaining for themselves and their families a supply of Wheaten Bread and Flour, and Butcher's meat',(13) and, in 1817, the Devonport Union Mill, near Plymouth, was established by dock workers, initially as a wholesale bread supply society: it bought its own mill and bakery following a boycott by local bakers.(14) All the available evidence shows that these organisations were organisationally separate from any dockyard friendly societies that also existed.
In south Derbyshire and the surrounding areas 'Associations of Working Men'(15) organised flour clubs to buy grain wholesale, had it ground and sold to members at 'prime cost'. By the mid-1790s there were a number in south Derbyshire, Long Eaton (Nottinghamshire) and Quorndon, Sileby, Mountsorrel and other places in Leicestershire.(16) Several of them may have used the funds accumulated by friendly societies.(17) The Long Eaton Club sent grain to Batch Mill at Toton, Nottinghamshire, paying the miller 3/(15p) per quarter (1.58kg), and saving 4d-6d (1.7p-2.5p) per stone (6.3kg) for members, and a club in Rothley based on a friendly society used [pounds]50 of its funds to purchase corn, have it ground and retail to members at prime cost.(18) Although these clubs were in three different shire counties, the sites mentioned are not more than 25 miles apart. In Manchester, a union of friendly societies was reputed to save its members [pounds]5,000 through bulk purchasing.(19)
In Scotland, the Fenwick Weavers' friendly society (near Kilmarnock, Ayreshire) started dealing in oatmeal on behalf of its members in 1769 and continued until 1800. The amount invested in oatmeal fluctuated: [pounds]4.4.0d ([pounds]4.20) was invested in the first year and it had risen to [pounds]40.0.0d by the time the society ceased trading. Maxwell, writing in 1910, argued that many villages had oatmeal clubs and bakeries but had left no records. Other oatmeal societies are known to have been established in Arbroath (pre-1790) and Bridgeton (1800). Several specialist bread and flour societies were set up in Glasgow on or after 1801, Bannockburn, and Leven (1828).(20)
Friendly society-owned corn mills were established by one or more friendly societies mainly in Nottinghamshire and Sheffield. The Mansfield Sick Club Mill dated from 1779, undercut local millers by 3d per stone (1.25p per 6.3kg). In 1782, an abortive attempt was made by 16 Nottingham friendly societies to set up a mill of their own. The Greyhound Society in Mansfield Woodhouse had taken a postmill in 1783, which it operated until at least 1799 and possibly 1832.(21) Other mills followed in Newark, Hucknall, Chesterfield and Sheffield. The Newark mill ('Clubbers' Mill') involved at least eight of the town's ten friendly societies with 800 members.(22) The Hucknall Postmill was bought by the Sick Benefit Club in 1795.(23) The Chesterfield Club Mill was first mentioned in 1796, but was put up for sale in 1806.(24) The Sheffield Club Mill (1795) founded by the Masons' Society and 15 or 16 other friendly societies was eventually supported by 43 societies, which were expected to subscribe 20/- ([pounds]1) for each member. It cost [pounds]10,000 to set up the water mill with eight pairs of millstones, bakeries, dressing machines, granaries, drying kiln and 12-13 acres of land. As such it was amongst the largest cornmill and bakery undertakings in the country. The business collapsed in 1811.(25)
In the years following 1795 there were at least 16 societies set up as unincorporated joint stock flour and bread companies in Yorkshire and the West Midlands. These were significant enterprises, each with a large number of shareholders. Three societies were prosecuted as monopolists by local bakers and millers.(26) The proposers of the Hull Anti-Mill petitioned the corporation as 'We the poor inhabitants o f the said town' in 1795, raised 81 donations, recruited 1,435 members, and the mill was opened in June 1797 at a cost of [pounds]2,200.(27) Other flour and bread companies were established at Beverley (1799, costing [pounds]2,000), Bridlington (Anti-Mill, 1800), Newport (Anti-Mill, Yorkshire), and Whitby (1800, costing [pounds]2,534), and a second company in Hull itself (Hull Subscription Mill, 1799, costing [pounds]2,000). All these used the Hull Anti-Mill as the organisational prototype. The Bridlington Society was unusual in being donated to the community by a single individual.(28)
In 1795, it was proposed to establish a Birmingham Flour and Bread Company (BFBC) and by February 1796 more than [pounds]6,000 had been promised in donations and share capital to build a 16 hp steam mill. The articles of the BFBC stated that 'unless some proper and effectual means are taken, the evil attending the high price of grain and the shameful adulteration of flour will continue'.(29) By 1800 there were 1,360 shareholders in what was probably the largest flour and bread company in the country (the Albion Mills in London had burned down in 1791) and in which …
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