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In January 1883 the weekly newspaper "Co-operative News"
began its "Women's Pages" edited by Alice Acland.
Mrs Acland's first editorial appealed to women readers:
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What are men always urged to do when there is a meeting held
at any place to encourage or to start co-operative institutions?
Come! Help! Vote! Criticise! Act! What are women urged to do?
Come and Buy! That is the limit of the special work pointed
out to us women. In this matter of co-operation why should not
we women do more than we do? Surely, without departing from
our own sphere, and without trying to undertake work which can
be better done by men, there is more for us women to do than
to spend money. Spend our money at our own store we must, that
is a matter of course; but our duty does not end here, nor our
duty to our fellow creatures. To come and 'buy' is all we can
be asked to do; but cannot we go further ourselves? Why should
not we have our meetings, our readings, our discussions?
This was what the Guild's historian Catherine Webb referred to
as setting "the spark to the waiting tinder". Within a
few months the national organisation of the Women's League for the
Spread of Co-operation had been set up and the first local branches
were formed.
The name was changed in 1884 to the Women's Co-operative Guild
and later to the Co-operative Women's Guild, the name which it retains
today.
The Guild has been a campaigning organisation throughout its existence,
being involved, amongst others, in the campaigns for women's suffrage,
divorce reform, poor law reform, health care etc
The Archive's collections include pamphlets from the Guild's campaigns
and journals, the best known of which is Woman's Outlook, published
from 1919 to 1967.
A collection of Women's Guild banners is on display at the Rochdale
Pioneers Museum.
Co-operative Women's
Guild (pdf 42kb)
Flowers
of the Guild Garden (pdf 130kb) |
