Description

Admin History:

The Federation was formed in 1882 to join together some fifteen local producer-owned co-operative societies, with the aim of helping them to find capital and markets for their goods. These members were involved mainly in the clothing, footwear and printing trades, operating on a co-partnership and profit-sharing basis. The Federation was overtaken by the establishment in 1971 of the Industrial Common Ownership Movement as the central organisation of a new generation of workers' co-operatives.

Description:

The records held cover the period between 1896 and 1968. For the Federation itself, they comprise general minute books, to 1961, minutes of the propaganda committee (1915-1919), the footwear commodity committee (1943-1962) and the Stanton Memorial Scholarship committee (1918-1948), volumes of press cuttings (1938-1968), a visitors' book (1947-1952), a cash book (1895-1899) and a ledger (1918-1920). There are also minute books for the following related bodies: the Co operative Co-partnership propaganda committee (1918-1960), the management committee and advisory sub-committee of Co-operative Productive Federation Footwear Ltd (1946-1954), and the Lancashire and Yorkshire Centre of the Labour Association for the Promotion of Co-operative Production based on Labour Co-partnership (1897-1899).