Post-war photographic album of a regional store chain show pioneering historic switch to self-service

Paul Whitehouse

THESE images might appear as dated as Ena Sharples’ hairnets, but they document the onset of the modern era of food shopping in Yorkshire.

The pictures were taken as the once-mighty Co-op organisation introduced self-service aisles to its food stores instead of the traditional counter service.

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Within a matter of a few years supermarkets had adopted the idea in a move which quickly signalled the end for a large number of corner shops.

A unique record of that period of change has languished apparently forgotten in the vaults of the Co-op organisation’s headquarters in Manchester following the demise of the Barnsley British Co-op. It was recognised that the records they provided detailed evidence of the area’s social history and offered the material to Barnsley Council’s archives department, based at the town’s Central Library.

The collection includes documents including ledgers and other financial records, but the centrepiece is a photographic album documenting the period of rapid change in the post-war decades.

The network of suburban food stores features heavily but the images also serve as a reminder to the multitude of town centre departments, including the central butchery, mens wear and a formal restaurant, all centred around Wellington Street and Market Street in shops linked by a network of cellars so vast that staff used bicycles to get around underground.

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Libraries archives spokesman Paul Stebbing said: “This was given to us by the Co-op themselves. I don’t know if they were wanting to reduce the amount of records they hold centrally but we have been able to catalogue them and conserve them to make them available to the public, which is great.

“It was a nice surprise when we got them. We were telephoned to ask if we were interested and they said they would post them out to us, then an absolutely huge parcel came.

“There were a lot of things in there, old minutes and accounts but the real star is an photograph album of the Co-op stores in the post-war years,” he said.

At that time the Co-op was still a major force in the economy of Barnsley and its decision to switch to self service was a highly significant development.

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By today’s standards, the layout of the stores and the produce for sale appear somewhat austere, but at the time the policy was a radical move away from the tradition of counter service, where mothers could send children with a shopping list.

The development was an attempt to keep pace with moving times, but eventually the fast-moving world of retail overtook the Barnsley British Co-op, which disappeared into the wider organisation.

The last of the twice-yearly Barnsley British Co-operative Society reports and balance sheets was published in 1970.

They provided a remarkably detailed snapshot of the state of the organisation, down to the amount of money in the tills. In 1931, for instance, the main Wellington Street shop had the biggest turnover by a large margin but shops in Wath and Dodworth were also very popular.

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The Co-op movement in Barnsley was started by Rochdale miner George Adcroft, who moved to Barnsley and took with him the idea which originated in Lancashire 18 years earlier. That was 1862 and the idea, a society which worked for the benefit of its members, was an immediate success, outgrowing its first rented premises within six months.

In the post-war decades, the Co-op movement was being eclipsed and gradually contracted. Autonomous societies like Barnsley were unable to survive. It is expected the photographs and records will prove popular with local historians interested specifically in the Co-op’s influence in Barnsley, but also those investigating the national significance of the movement.

Family historians are also likely to find a wealth of information about relatives who worked for the organisation buried away in the documents. “It may also be useful for school groups, as the modern supermarket is the norm for today’s children,” said Mr Stebbing. “We can see this as where it all started, it was a major shift in the way things were done,” he said.

Cabinet spokesperson for customer and neighbourhood services Coun Roy Miller added: “The wonderful photographs... will allow historians to gain an insight into the development of the Co-op while allowing the general public to reminisce about a bygone age.”

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