Reading in the Archive - By Fran, Archive Volunteer

I mean the place and not the verb, although there is plenty of reading to be done in an archive. 

I have been volunteering at the Co-op Archive for over a year now, and I’ve come across plenty of material. However, the material that has caught the most of my attention is material coming from my hometown, the illustrious and famously miraculous Reading!

What started me purposefully exploring Reading further was coming across this picture in the Co-operative Press Photographic Collection that I’m currently listing.

Reading Co-operative Society, Cheapside/West Street, 1979 Co-op Press Archive CPR/9/28

Who’s corner? Certainly not Jackson’s

Initially I thought the building was at Jackson’s Corner, but I realised that none of the windows were remotely similar, so instead I decided to ask my grandparents and they told me it was at 93-98 Friar Street. The building is in fact at Cheapside/West Street and is now a Primark store. 

Looking in the Co-op directories that are at the Co-op Archive, there was a store on Friar Street which my grandparents remember. It is now just a casino, with most of its lovely architecture likely changed in 1992 according to a plaque where the bins are now kept further down the right.

I realised it was a building I had driven past hundreds of times and had thought that it was some modernist apartment belonging to millionaires!

Exterior of Reading Co-op, Friar Street, 2024. Used with permission from the author

The Berkshires (except it’s in England and it’s an archive)

However, wanting to learn more I went the Royal Berkshire Archives (RBA) to see what I could find about this building. Whilst in the RBA not only was I able to find pictures from inside this building, but other co-ops throughout Reading and Berkshire.

Interior of Reading Co-op Store on Friar Street c1930 Courtesy Royal Berkshire Archives

Researching the building has allowed me to experience how another archive operates. I am familiar with how the Co-op Archive works with their catalogue on Archives Hub. RBA have their own catalogue and from this I was able to search what I was looking for, and as with Archives Hub, write down the reference numbers for the items I wished to see and then send them a request through their online form.

Reading Co-operative London Road. Image courtesy of Royal Berkshire Archives

Amongst the material I requested in the RBA there was a postcard of an old building with a co-op engraving in the façade from 1900. The text on it said that the road was one close to my old secondary school. When I drove down it, I thought the building had been knocked down, but there was still a Co-op store on this street. I thought it looked sad and boring, but whilst writing this I decided to dig a bit deeper.

Thanks to The Way Back Machine I was able to find an archived version of a newspaper article from 2018. The article discussed the history of the building, and apparently the Co-op that I saw was in fact the original from the picture. The clock tower had been damaged during WW2 and was later replaced. The Co-op I thought was a let-down was in fact the oldest in Reading. That teaches me! The end of the article even mentions our very own archive where there are other collections and books that I can research too.

Exterior of Reading Co-op, London Road, 2024. Used with permission from the author

In the Co-op News from 1979, I found this article on the refurbishment of the Reading Society Co-op building at Cheapside.

Co-op News Nov 21 1979, Co-op Archive.

Museums Too!

I also went to the Reading Museum to see if the museum held any memorabilia on display. It was unfortunately less numerous (only a bottle cap and a milk token), however still interesting to see that Co-op is impactful enough to be a notable part of local history.

Milk bottle tops produced by the Co-op for the Queens Silver Jubilee in 1977 and the birth of Prince William,1982. With kind permission from the Reading Berkshire Archive. FB 2024.

Back in the Co-op Archive I came across a book filled with addresses of Co-op shops across the South-East of England from 1984. In here I found a shop on the street adjacent to the one I grew up on. However, when I asked my grandparents, who had lived there since the 1960s if they had remembered it they weren't able to. 

I searched the company on the Financial Conduct Authority website and found that they had begun operation one year before the book was written in 1983, but de-registered in 1987. It still doesn’t answer why my mother and grandparents seem to have never heard of or seen it!

In my search for this elusive co-op I found True Food, a co-op who have been operating since 1999 which was opposite the hall were my Brownies meetings were held. What can I say, the co-op and I have been linked in the stars! 

Co-op World Domination 

Another find in the Co-op Archive is this Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) board game held in the Co-op Archive that I cleaned with another volunteer. The game shows the different locations of CWS factories and  what produced. For Reading it shows jams, canned fruit, sauces, and pickles, etc. This really surprised me as I had no idea that Reading had any connections to jam. I thought Reading was historically the producers of the 3 Bs - biscuits, beer and bulbs and, as I was taught in primary school, bricks.

I’ve really enjoyed exploring whilst in the archive, discovering bits of my hometown I had never known before. To be able to extend this search to other sites like the archive in Reading, the museum and just my local street corners was particularly fun. I felt very professional. It also shows how not only is the co-op intertwined with the history of Greater Manchester, but it has also the history of many communities across England, Scotland and Wales. This is something I’ve especially learnt whilst cataloguing the photos from Co-op Press. 

I’ve also enjoyed coming across material from international co-ops, from New Zealand to Sweden, and countries now known by different names than the ways they were recorded: Burma is now Myanmar or Laponie(Lapland) region in Finland.  So, whilst I’ve found my hometown in these objects, I’ve also been able to see the influence of the co-op movement globally.

CWS board game, Co-op Archives.