Last updated at 10:41, Tuesday, 15 September 2009

CO-OPERATIVE stores have become something of an endangered species with the rise of the supermarket and one to have passed into extinction is the Kirkby Ireleth Co-operative Society.

• Store had its own supply of dividend coins for shoppers

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In its glory years the society has far more than somewhere to buy potatoes and candles, it was a major community undertaking and got involved in farming and even house building.

Getting started was tough. Many people couldn’t see how blacksmiths and slate quarry workers could take on “proper” shopkeepers – but they did.

Kirkby saw the success of the Dalton Co-operative Society but it didn’t want to expand into Kirkby so a group of villagers held meeting in the old Smithy at Soutergate and the slate works to get things going.

A public meeting was held in the reading room at Incline Foot, at which 14 people signed up as founder members and each invested £1.

Part of a cottage was rented to start trading on December 12 in 1861 and the name adopted was Kirkby Ireleth Co-operative Society, which was changed from the 1880s to eventually become the Kirkby-in-Furness Equitable IndustrialCo-operative.

The first goods traded were flour and oatmeal with sugar, currants, soap and candles added later.

By March 1862 a bigger shop was obtained in Wellington Street and the members decided to hire a full-time shopman rather than doing all the selling themselves.

The society was pretty good at promoting itself and even had a poem printed on its paper bags:

This Kirkby Ireleth friendly store

Will serve their friends with pleasure

With good and cheap and something more –

Discount, good weight, and measure.

Unto ourselves we have found good,

We wish the same to others;

Come here, kind friends and buy your food,

And let us live like brothers.

The discount idea was soon dropped in favour of paying out quarterly dividends based on how much each customer had spent.

This first sharing out of the trading surplus was for the quarter-year ending June 1862, when the 86 members got a return of 1/6d (7p) for each pound they had spent.

Expansion led to the opening of a purpose-built new store in Sandgate. It cost £300 and opened in 1864.

It was not always easy sailing. Some hired managers proved to be incompetent or crooked, and there were times when the committee could not pay its bills.

On one occasion a traveller attended a committee meeting to collect payment for goods supplied, but the secretary could not be found. The secretary later told committee members: “as there was no cash with which to pay the man, he had deliberately kept out of the way until the last train had gone.”

By the mid-1870s things were improving and the shop was enlarged to add shoe repairs, a savings bank and coal supplies.

By the end of 1880, annual sales had reached £8,692 and membership had increased to 284.

Land was purchased in 1884 on which eight cottages, named Herschell Terrace, were built and were ready to move into by 1886.

Skell Hill farm was bought in 1885 and ten acres of land added in 1895.

In 1904 Bell Haw farm cottages and 20 acres of land was bought.

A big new shop was built and opened in 1904 at a cost of £450 and had equipment for grinding corn and coffee, for cleaning dried fruit and hoisting sacks of flour.

Power came from an engine named ‘success’.

Early in the morning of March 16 in 1905 there was a major fire at the Kirkby store.

A booklet produced by the society noted: “Many willing helpers were soon an the scene, the Dalton Fire Brigade was sent for, and soon had the fire in hand, but not before a large amount of damage was done to property and stock, amounting to almost £400.” It could have been much worse.

An event to mark the society’s 50th jubilee was held in July 1912. A marquee capable of holding 100 people was put up outside the shop.

Before tea, music was provided by Askam Town Brass Band and the Gollies concert party from Millom.

A grand concert in the evening was attended by 1,000 people.

By the end of 1914 membership had reached 450 and to 556 by 1920. Times were tough in the 1920s, with falling sales during a nationalrecession. The 1930s weren’t much better, despite the society expanding into the production of hats and furniture and undertaking building work.

By 1968 declining sales led the Kirkby committee seeking a merger with Barrow Co-operative Society.

This went through on January 19 in 1969, bringing to an end more than a century of independent trading, which touched most areas of village life.

First published at 10:39, Saturday, 12 September 2009
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk