Context 165 - August 2020

36 C O N T E X T 1 6 5 : A U G U S T 2 0 2 0 competition from smarter chain stores led to modernisation, with plate-glass windows and electric lighting. Societies could rent or buy shop premises, but many stores were purpose-built, often by their own building departments. Larger co-ops might employ a clerk of works, probably a master builder capable of designing a store, or an architect could be consulted. Architects ready to endure the rigorous scrutiny of a society’s building committee might be rewarded with a series of commissions, not only for stores but also for stables, warehouses and bakeries. In architectural terms, countrywide this resulted in a collection of stores in varying styles, united only by their use of co-operative symbolism. Beehives and wheatsheaves regularly appeared on pediments, along with clasped hands and transport imagery, emphasising the importance of trading. The earliest surviving store to retain its beehive in situ is Morley’s original premises (1869), near Leeds. Finding reliable sources of high-quality pro- duce was problematic for co-ops, most of which initially relied on private local and regional wholesalers. The CWS, with its headquarters in Manchester, provided a solution for north- western societies, but the cost of rail carriage was prohibitively high, deterring more distant co-ops. The answer was to open more regional centres: major CWS branches at Newcastle upon Tyne (1871) and London (1874) were fol- lowed in the decade after 1882 by smaller depots and salerooms at Leeds, Bristol, Huddersfield, Nottingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Blackburn, Northampton, Cardiff and Birmingham. Aside from major buildings in London and Newcastle, Manchester’s early- 20th-century CWS headquarters was designed by the organisation’s own architects. The Daisyfield (Blackburn) Industrial Co-operative Society opened this branch in 1908. Unusually, its decoration included both wheatsheaf and beehive. Transport-themed faience detailing on the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society’s art-deco department store Tower House (1932–3) in Lewisham