Co - operative Banners

The vast majority of the images in this collection are from the Co-operative Guilds. These guilds have been very influential within the movement and are rich resource. There is also a small collection from Co-operative Societies, the Co-operative Party and the Youth Movement.

The Co-operative Women's Guild was founded in 1883 as the women's section of the co-operative Movement. A section of the newspaper for the movement, Co-operative News, carried articles about women's issues. Although these were initially aspects such as cookery, homemaking, maternity and childcare they rapidly developed into issues about women's rights. From early days of the guild it campaigned on a whole range of issues such as better pay scales for women, female membership rights to trade unions and the right to vote. By 1935 there were more than 79,000 and over 1,500 branches. The Scottish co-operators had their own women's guild.

The Men's Guild served a similar purpose to the women's guild but never reached the same membership. By 1935 it had a membership of over 9,000 with about 300 branches. There were various other Guilds including the National Guild of Co-operators, which was established in 1926 and had similar aims to the Women's Guilds but was open to people of both sexes. It was very strong in South Yorkshire and the North of England