The Co-operative Guildman - by Clare Hirst (Collections Manager)

I’m the Collections Manager for the Co-op Heritage Trust – which means I look after the physical objects in the museum collections, and this involves cataloguing and rehousing items in external stores off-site.

One afternoon in early September, I happened to find an interesting piece of crockery nestled amongst the many various co-op society plateware we have. Some were produced by or for the ‘Women’s Guild’ which people often ask about, but this piece was in fact a commemorative plate dedicated to the ‘Tunbridge Wells Co-operative Men’s Guild’.

 

My interest was sparked; I see many different items relating to the vast range of societies and groups within the movement, but never the ‘Men’s Guild’, although I had known of their existence through paper records in the Archive collection.

 

Image of Tunbridge Wells Society Men's Guild catering china - CHT collections

As International Men's Day on the 19th of November was coming up, I worked with my colleague at the National Co-operative Archive to delve a little deeper into the history of the ‘Co-operative Men’s Guild’, intrigued as to why they existed in an already male dominated movement back in the day. Did they mirror the ways of the Women’s Guild or work alongside them? My curiosity was to find out the primary information so I could continue to grow in knowledge, as this is one area of the movement which I know very little about.

 

The archive holds ‘The Co-operative Guildman’ publication produced from the 1920’s in the same building as the Guardian newspaper in Manchester. These magazines mainly highlight news of their developments, with a platform for members to write in and express opinions. The pamphlets are supported by minutes from official meetings held throughout the various guilds and give some insight into the organization’s very brief existence.

 

The Co-operative Men’s Guild was first formed in 1911; their first annual report, produced a year later reveals some of their main aims and objectives, including the development of a ‘Co-operative College’ which did later form in 1919 – partly because of campaigning for better education for working class people after the horrors of the First World War. It was at this time the guild grew by nearly 4000 members over 126 branches in the UK. The guild’s motto was “Unrestricted Co-operation for all Purposes of Life”, and it is reflective of their aims; one of which was to “Make known the principles of co-operation and assist towards their universal application to human affairs”.

Front Cover - The Guildman from September 1940

This and the timing suggest that those who were promoting the spread of branches for men might have been keen to apply co-operative values to problem solving to avoid conflict in the post war society – but it might also have been a difficult time for men for several reasons. Thousands of men had been killed on the front line and many more disabled in service or coping with deep psychological trauma. Following the declaration of peace, the impact of a deadly pandemic known as ‘Spanish Flu’ impacted younger people particularly and those who were the backbone of the workforce at a time of re-building. The years following the war were marked by increasing numbers of women in the wider workforce, often doing jobs which had been exclusively male – even where some women who had stepped in during the conflict lost their jobs ‘when the boys came home’, the long term trend was a shift towards employing more women albeit at a lower rate of pay, especially when faced with economic downturn in the 1920’s and 1930’s.

 

With this brief introduction to the objectives of the men’s guild, we are made aware of their serious determination to lead a way for co-operative education and the development of workers’ rights. Judging from the following quote, there seems to have been a link between the experiences of working-class men in a new society and their application of cooperativism.  

 

“The co-operative movement was founded by men. Men should fight for it, and control destinies.” (Practical Work for the Men’s Guild. Williams. B. 1914)

 

By the early 1930’s, the guild was approached by the Co-operative Women’s Guild (which had existed since 1883) to have a joint executive meeting. This was the first of many to be declined, indicating that the men’s guild was striving to be independent in conserving the roles of men within the movement. In an open letter written and printed in ‘The Co-operative Guildsman’ in 1953, one member writing in stated:

 

 “This vast number of women, organized in three national guilds, do not seem to know what their co-operative job should be”.

 

 

Front cover - The Guildman (September 1950)

The National Co-operative Men’s Guild had ceased to exist by 1960, as over time local branches dwindled in size and were wound up (mostly around the time of the Second World War). There were alternative outlets for mutual aid such as the National Guild of Co-operators (NGC) started in 1926, which allowed both men and women to co-exist as members. We have items in our collections reflecting them and there was an active membership until the 1980’s, but the lack of new members led to the closure of the CWG in 2016 and the national guild by 2019.

Some more information about the Co-operative Men's Guild : Medicine, charity and mutual aid : the consumption of health and welfare in Britain, c.1550-1950 / edited by Anne Borsay and Peter Shapely.