Rise and Fall of the Town Co-op
IN THE early part of this century folks used to say there was a factory and Co-op on every street in Rushden.
For almost 130 years the Cooperative movement played a vital role in the town's life.
At one time it owned as many as 30 stores selling everything from bread, meat and groceries to coal, hardware and drapery.
But by the 1990s they had all disappeared.
The rise and demise of Rushden Industrial Co-operative Society is charted in 'The Divi', a fascinating display at the Heritage Centre. Old photos, shop signs and other memorabilia tell a remarkable story, which began with a meeting at Rushden Temperance Hall on October 7,1876. Two years later the first Co-op store opened at 19 High Street, with David Darnell as manager.
The shop was open from 8am to 8pm on weekdays and 8am to 10pm on Saturdays. Mr Darnell, who lived above the store and paid £10 a year rent and had to put down a £90 bond to secure against him absconding. He was allowed sixpence commission in the pound over and above weekly takings of £40. A bakery was opened behind the shop in 1879, followed by the first slaughterhouse in 1887 and first butchers in 1888, both in Park Road.
During the 1890s a coal and coke business was established along with other stores in High Street South, Wellingborough Road and Queen Street.
By its Golden Jubilee in 1926, it owned Dial Farm in Bedford Road, Grange Farm at Sanders Lodge and Knuston Farm along with a High Street drapery, a new bakery in Newton Road, and fish and chip shops in Newton Road and Wellingborough Road.
The first motor vehicle was a Thornycroft butcher's van, in 1919 and the first milk rounds were introduced in the 1920s.
During the Second World War, it had five horse-drawn milk floats and one motor vehicle (restricted to ten miles a day), employing seven full-time and five part-time staff. Wartime membership was almost 7,000 people, all entitled to the popular perk known as the "Divi" (Dividend). Co-op shareholders received a bonus twice a year, the amount being a percentage of what they had spent as a customer (often five pence in the pound).
'The Divi was vital for mothers to buy essentials'
The "Divi", paid out from the Co-op Hall in High Street, was vital for mothers to buy essentials such as children's clothing or furniture and a Penny Bank was established above the Park Road butchers for people to save and buy shares.
In those days shops delivered milk, bread and coal by van and orders would be taken on Mondays by a boy on a bike, who would also collect cash. Branches were opened in Wymington and Podington, the latter now a house next to the garden centre, and the first travel shop was opened in High Street in the former Star Tea Company premises.
Social events for employees were held at the Windmill Hall. There were also day trips to the seaside, children's Christmas parties and a thriving Co-op Women's Guild.
Down the years Rushden Co-op also had grocery shops in Purvis Road and Rose Avenue (now the Spar), a High Street chemists, a hardware store in Higham Road and an electrical department on the High Street/Queen Street corner. During the 1950s the Newton Road bakery boasted five delivery vans, four of them electric.
Competition from supermarkets in the 1960s and mergers with larger Co-ops started the decline of stores in Rushden but the exhibition also includes the continuing success story of Raunds Co-operative Society, one of the smallest in the country when it was formed in 1891. Its Central premises in Grove Street were opened in 1901, celebrated annually by the Co-op 'Treat', a procession and tea for local children. It once owned a grocers and butchers in High Street, three farms, one of which was used for milk production, and converted a grocery warehouse into a supermarket in the 1970s. Turnover in its centenary year of 1991 was £3m.
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